GOP Candidate Says Military Retirees Must Pay More for Health Care

Jul 09, 2015 | by Brendan McGarry
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Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina and GOP presidential candidate, said military retirees will eventually have to pay more for their health care.

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In a speech Wednesday at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the fee structure under the military health care program known as Tricare hasn't changed with any significance in two decades.
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"The retired Tricare community is going to have to increase over time the amount they pay to make it sustainable," he said. "About 5 percent of the money to pay Tricare bills comes from the patient population. In the private sector, it's about 20 [percent]. So over time, we're going to have to ask Tricare retirees to contribute more to make Tricare more sustainable."
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The cost of the military's health care system almost tripled to $52 billion in 2012 from $19 billion in 2001. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2009 famously warned Congress that "health care is eating the department alive."
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Troop advocates argue overall defense spending soared with the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that personnel costs as a percentage of the defense budget remained flat at about a third of the spending plan.
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