So they want to reduce that cut by nailing the retired military. I get the point, I just dont get their answer to it.
The TRICARE program provides health care for the military’s uniformed personnel and retirees, and for their dependents and survivors—the more than 9 million people eligible to use its integrated system of military health care facilities and providers and regional networks of contracted civilian providers. In 2008, the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) costs for that medical care were $42 billion, or about 6 percent of DoD’s total funding for that year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has projected DoD’s future spending on the basis of the information in the most recent Future Years Defense Program (FYDP).1 Those projections indicate that costs for medical care will rise more rapidly than overall resources for defense and require an estimated 13 percent of total defense funding by 2026.2 To accommodate that growth could require reductions in spending for other defense programs, such as the procurement and maintenance of weapon systems.
Alternatively, if policymakers chose to increase DoD’s resources, such boosts in funding might put pressure on other types of federal spending. Thus, many policymakers have expressed the concern that the current TRICARE program will become unaffordable in the future.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/102xx/doc10261/TRICARE.pdf