White House TRICARE Change Proposal

The Obama administration has recently put forth a change to the benefits under TRICARE and TRICARE for Life (TFL), predicated on the rationale that the changes would bring military retirees health benefits more in line with those of their civilian and private sector counterparts (afterall, military service is just another job, isn't it!). 

The changes include:

• annual fees for the TFL program, beginning with a $200 annual fee in 2013. The fee then would increase to align with the modest increase in the fees under the regular TRICARE program.  (Rationale is that this is more in line with what the private sector pays)
   
• move the TRICARE pharmacy program closer to parity with the most popular Federal employee health plan, BlueCross BlueShield Standard and closer to the health plans that most Americans have from their employers.  It would introduce percentage (vs. dollar) copays (beyond those implemented on 1 Occt 2011) for non-generic drugs (but would eliminate copays for generics).

Details are at pages 20 and 21 of the White House Plan.

MOAA has an update to this story.