Overseas military health care and benefits add over $11.6 billion to the base bill.

Evidence

The Overseas Cost Summary includes the pay and extra allowances for military personnel abroad, but I confirmed with the Pentagon that, strangely, it doesn’t include health care and other benefits paid to troops. The Defense Health Program and other military personnel benefits, excluding those that are war-related, cost 31.2 billion and 51.8 billion, respectively, in 2012 worldwide. With 14 percent of all U.S. military personnel overseas, not counting troops directly involved in U.S. wars, I conservatively estimate that the same percentage of costs occurs overseas. This adds up to a little over $11.6 billion. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 622

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• The United States denies universal health care while spending heavily on overseas bases (similarity 0.89)
• US overseas bases cost taxpayers at least $71.8 billion annually (similarity 0.85)
• Official overseas base costs for 2012 totaled 22.7 billion dollars (similarity 0.85)
• The Pentagon legally must report total overseas base spending each year (similarity 0.84)
• Overseas base spending exceeds every federal agency’s budget except Defense. (similarity 0.84)
• Overseas base maintenance costs taxpayers over $100 billion annually (similarity 0.84)
• The Overseas Cost Summary omits entire categories of overseas spending (similarity 0.83)
• The U.S. lacks universal health care while spending heavily on overseas bases. (similarity 0.83)
• Total overseas base costs reached $170 billion for fiscal year 2012. (similarity 0.83)
• Official overseas base cost figures exclude all war-zone maintenance spending (similarity 0.83)
• Stationing a soldier abroad costs each taxpayer $10,000–$40,000 more annually (similarity 0.83)
• Overseas bases and troops cost around $136 billion in 2014 (similarity 0.83)
• Official base cost tallies exclude billions in classified overseas programs (similarity 0.83)
• Official Pentagon figures understate overseas base costs by over fivefold (similarity 0.82)
• Overseas bases cost more to run than domestic ones despite host-nation support (similarity 0.82)