Tricare coverage offered to reservists who agree to stay on after deployment

[catman]

By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, March 25, 2005



ARLINGTON, Va. ? Beginning April 26, reservists who serve in the war on terror and who agree to spend more time in the reserves when they come home will have the option of joining Tricare, the military?s healthcare coverage program.

Tricare automatically covers reservists and their families when the member is activated and placed on active-duty status. That coverage lasts for an additional 180 days after the reservist returns from the deployment.

The purpose of new Tricare Select Reserve, or TSR, is to ?allow a wider bridge? for reservists who may experience gaps in health-care coverage during their transition from military to civilian life, according to Charles Abell, principal deputy under secretary of Defense Personnel and Readiness.

Congress mandated the creation of the new program in the defense department?s fiscal 2005 budget authorization.

Any reserves component member who has been called up for at least 90 consecutive days of active duty since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 ? a pool of 400,000 reservists ? is potentially eligible to join TSR, according to Thomas Hall, the assistant secretary of Defense Reserve Affairs.

But Hall and the other defense officials who unveiled details of TSR at the Pentagon on Thursday could not offer estimates of how many of those reservists might choose to join the new program, or what the annual cost of the program might be to taxpayers.

?We obviously have some numbers we?ve used as estimates ? but none we?re proud of enough to talk about,? Abell said.

Joining the TSR program will cost individuals $75 per month, or $900 per year. Family coverage will cost $233 per month, or $2,796 per year ? ?very attractive premium rates,? according to William Winkenwerder Jr., Assistant Secretary of Defense Health Affairs.

Premiums will be adjusted every January to reflect any changes in the cost of health care, he said.

The coverage offered by TSR is equivalent to that offered by the existing Tricare Standard and Tricare Extra programs, he said.

How long a reservist and his or her family is eligible for the new health coverage depends on two factors: how long they were activated for the war on terror; and how many additional years of reserve duty they agree to serve after they come home, Hall said.

Each 90 days of continuous active duty served in support of a contingency operation is worth one year of TSR coverage, up to a maximum of eight years of coverage in return for two full years of active duty.

However, reservists must agree to serve selected reserves duty after they come off active duty, with a one-year minimum commitment to be eligible for TSR.

Reservists are then eligible for one whole year of TSR coverage for each whole year of service commitment.

For example, if a reservist was activated for 360 days (four 90-day blocks), and also agrees to serve for another four years in the drilling reserves or Guard, he or she will be eligible for four years of TSR participation.

Reservists who were activated after Sept. 11, 2001, but who have since quit the drilling reserves will have until Oct. 28, 2005, to enter into an additional service agreement, Hall said.

Defense officials are sending letters explaining TSR to all eligible reservists, Hall said.

For more information on Tricare Select Reserve, go to http://www.tricare.osd.mil/trs.cfm.