Editor's note: In lieu of our regular Tricare Help Q&A format, this week we offer a commentary from retiring Marine Corps 1st Sgt. Arthur Torrey of Kingwood, Texas.

After 20 years of honorable service, reservists qualify for military retirement and health care benefits. They can't draw retirement pay until age 60, but from their date of retirement until that age — a period called the "gray area" — they do qualify for military health care.

To set the stage: Single active-duty members and their families do not pay any enrollment fees under Tricare Prime. For retirees and their families, the Prime enrollment fee is now $47.10 per month, or $565.20 per year.

For drilling reservists, Tricare Reserve Select now charges premiums of $50.75 a month, or $609 a year; and family coverage is $205.62 a month, or $2,467.44 a year.

For gray-area reservists, Tricare Retired Reserve single coverage runs $390.89 a month, or $4,690.68 a year; and family coverage is $961.35 a month, or $11,563.62 a year.

That cost difference between drilling and retired reservists is more than 650 percent for single coverage and almost 370 percent for family coverage.

Organized crime can't get that kind of return. These are not the benefits one would expect to receive upon retiring from 20-plus years of honorable service.

Reservist retirees have been an integral part of the same combat force that has supported our nation in large numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan for 15 years. They are unjustly served by the above costs for the health care benefits they earned.

As I hang up my uniform to receive my thank-you letter from the commander in chief, I am beyond understanding the rationale for also being handed a bill for medical coverage that jacks up my costs by such an astronomical amount.

But I don't expect something for nothing, so allow me to suggest the following:

Course of Action No. 1: Rather than maintain three program platforms (active-duty, drilling reservist, retired reservist), why not have only two programs — active duty and a combined drilling/retired reservist program? I have to think that would reduce administrative/contract costs and save money and time.

Course of Action No. 2: Maintain all three existing programs as they are, do nothing and slap a sad-face emoji on it.

Course of Action No. 3: Select Course of Action No. 1, then, going forward, index all future cost increases for retired reservists to the annual active-duty military pay raise, which determines the annual increase in military retired pay.

In closing: The health care costs being charged to retired reservists who honorably served 20 years or more in uniform amount to highway robbery. I'm happy to discuss this further with our esteemed military leaders and administrators.

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