Defense healthcare costs, which have surged 144 percent in the last eight years, are "eating up" the U.S. military budget and now represent an "existential threat" to the Defense Department, a high-level Pentagon advisory panel concludes in a new briefing that urges the next defense secretary and senior military leaders to address this "perilous threat." Michael Bayer, chairman of the Defense Business Board, and Dov Zakheim, Pentagon comptroller from 2001 to 2005 and a member of the advisory panel, warn...
