Paul Coverdell: “Today I am proud to join my esteemed colleagues in introducing a bill that will expand and make permanent the Medicare…”

“Today I am proud to join my esteemed colleagues in introducing a bill that will expand and make permanent the Medicare Subvention demonstration program passed as part of the 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement. I worked with Senator Gramm to pass that measure then and I am pleased to join him again today to move this program to its next level. Military retirees have had an increasingly difficult time obtaining the lifetime health care they were promised in return for 20 years of service to their country. The problem, largely, has been access. The number of military hospitals has decreased dramatically since the end of the cold war and TRICARE/CHAMPUS, the health care plan created to assist military retirees, not only is not available to a military retiree who is Medicare eligible, but also when it is available its reimbursement rates are so low many private practitioners will not accept it, forcing military retirees back into military hospitals on a 'space available' basis. Mr. President, you can see the vicious cycle this creates. Simply, put, military retirees are being shut out of the military health care system.”