MILITARY UPDATE
Young retirees want relief from TRICARE Standard health plan

Military Update focuses on issues affecting pay, benefits and lifestyle of active and retired servicepeople. Its author, Tom Philpott, is a Virginia-based syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has covered military issues for almost 25 years, including six years as editor of Navy Times. For 17 years he worked as a writer and senior editor for Army Times Publishing Co. Philpott, 49, enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1973 and served as an information officer from 1974-77.

By Tom Philpott

In April last year, TRICARE stopped a $12 co-payment for doctor visits by active-duty family members using TRICARE Prime, the military's managed healthcare plan. Six months later, service elderly gained access to TRICARE for Life, the golden supplement to Medicare.

Between these two populations of generally satisfied beneficiaries are 3 million military retirees, family members and survivors under age 65. According to a White Paper drawing attention on Capitol Hill and at TRICARE headquarters, many of these younger retirees are frustrated and clamoring for their own healthcare reforms.

Two-thirds of them, about 1.9 million beneficiaries, use TRICARE Standard, the fee-for-service health insurance, formerly called CHAMPUS. Out-of-pocket costs under Standard are far higher than under Prime: a $300 annual deductible, a 25-percent patient cost share on allowable charges to retirees, and additional costs if doctors refuse to accept TRICARE rates or decline to participate in TRICARE at all.

Even as TRICARE Prime becomes more attractive and less of a hassle, many retirees are stuck under Standard. Many live too far from a military base or physician network to enroll in managed care. Others accept the higher costs for the freedom to choose their own doctors. Many more retirees don't enroll in Prime because they have health insurance through civilian employers, and use TRICARE Standard only as a second payer plan. They're the lucky ones, the White Paper contends, because Standard isn't the same CHAMPUS plan of the pre-TRICARE era, regardless of what officials say.

TRICARE officials concede that their focus in recent years has been on establishing Prime networks and explaining their features to potential enrollees. As a result, they say, perhaps they paid too little attention to costs and other challenges faced by Standard users.

The White Paper, researched and written by nine activists calling themselves the Military Retiree Grass Roots Group, was delivered in June to all 535 members of Congress.

The group's top priority is passage of legislation that would allow retirees to ignore TRICARE and enroll in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, the menu of health insurance options open to federal civilians and retirees. Military retirees should pay only about a third of the FEHBP premiums paid by federal civilians, the paper suggests.

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