Editorial: How to save Tricare

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Editorial: How to save Tricare

The Pentagon’s health care costs have more than doubled since 2001 to $43 billion this year, almost 10 percent of the defense budget. At this pace, health care will cost $65 billion by 2015.

Congress was right to shoot down the Pentagon’s proposal to deal with this budget crunch by jacking up Tricare fees for retirees and their families by 200 percent to 400 percent. But lawmakers only punted. They failed to come up with a solution.

Tricare fees haven’t changed since the program was created in 1995, during which time American health care costs have risen by more than 50 percent.

One result: Military health care beneficiaries’ share of actual health care costs has declined from 27 percent in 1995 to 12 percent today.

This has made Tricare the nation’s best health care bargain. But it also has made it unsustainable.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/community/opinion/army_editorial_tricare_051908/