Duncan Faircloth: “this amendment directs the General Accounting Office to take a close look at the health care benefit that we provide to…”

“this amendment directs the General Accounting Office to take a close look at the health care benefit that we provide to our military dependents, retirees, and their survivors. Enough time has passed since we replaced CHAMPUS with the TRICARE program that it is now time to see whether or not we are providing a proper benefit. When I speak of a ``proper benefit,'' I use a very simple standard. I want to be sure that our men and women in uniform and their loved ones are being cared for as well as our civilian federal employees are. The Federal Employees Health Benefits program (FEHBP) provides civilian federal employees and retirees with a good health care benefit having a wide range of patient choice. It's the program that covers all of us in Congress, and my goal is to make sure that TRICARE is just as good for our military families. Mr. President, the FEHBP offers many different managed-care, fee-for-service, and preferred-provider plans from which to choose. If the civilian federal employee or retiree finds his or her health care plan to be inadequate, another plan of the same type can be chosen. For our military families, it is not so simple. With TRICARE, you only get a choice of one managed-care, one fee-for-service, or one preferred-provider plan. To paraphrase Henry Ford, you can pick any HMO-type plan that you want, as long as you choose TRICARE Prime.”