President Bush:

We petition you to withdraw your proposal that military retirees must choose between enrollment in Tricare or Veterans Administration (VA) healthcare.

Many military retirees have a service connected disability from injuries or illnesses contacted during their 20 plus years of honorable service to this great nation. In many cases this requires specialized treatment that is not available from local doctors. At the VA this is an earned free entitlement.

If a retiree is forced to choose Tricare for the medical care they would be responsible for the Tricare co-payment on their service connected disability. This would force a financial hardship upon many. This would be another erosion of our benefits.

Military retirees have earned and were promised healthcare for serving 20 plus years of honorable service. We need the option to be enrolled in both healthcare systems in order to maintain our health and receive the quality of care we earned by our sacrifices.

This proposal will affect over 1.8 million retirees. The nations longest serving veterans. All military retirees are veterans but not all veterans are military retirees.


We urge you to withdraw this proposal.