The military's massive health insurance program offers millions of service members, retirees and their dependents quality care at relatively low cost. That's what the government aimed for when it created the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services in 1966, now known as TRICARE. But the price of that success has been high for Uncle Sam: The $53 billion program now consumes 10 percent of the Pentagon's nonwar budget/.../
"We're looking at the proposal of a declining Defense budget perhaps for the rest of the decade," says Todd Harrison, a senior fellow in defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. According to Harrison, that means personnel costs have to shrink, which translates into reducing the number of people in the military or decreasing per person expenses. To avoid more painful cuts, Defense has to increase fees and pharmacy drug co-payments, he says. It's something the department has been trying to do, but it often runs into resistance from Congress. "It's going to keep coming back up," he adds. "And eventually Congress will go along with some modest premium increases for TRICARE"/.../
Those who favor asking TRICARE beneficiaries to pay more might have a more receptive audience, especially among the under-65 crowd, than conventional wisdom has dictated. According to a July study from CSBA, military personnel "tend to undervalue retirement health care benefits, particularly early in their career." That makes sense, given how young people traditionally view retirement and health care. But even among mid-career personnel, "89 percent would prefer an immediate $350 increase in annual pay in exchange for a $1,400 per year increase in the TRICARE Prime fee they would pay once they retire," the study found.