Final evaluation report for the TRICARE senior supplement demonstration program

The TRICARE Senior Supplement Demonstration (TSSD), conducted from March 2000 through December 2002 in selected areas of California and Texas, offers Medicare-eligible military beneficiaries the option of enrolling in the TRICARE health care program as a supplement to Medicare. This book describes RAND¹s evaluation of the TSSD program. The authors found that enrollment in TSSD was very low because of several factors including confusion among beneficiaries about the demonstration overall and the specifics of the TSSD benefit, the temporary nature of the demonstration program, and the passage of the 2001 National Defense Authorization Act, which created the permanent TRICARE for Life (TFL) program that supercedes TSSD. At the same time, eligible beneficiaries who enrolled in TSSD reported generally high levels of satisfaction with the program. The authors conclude that implementation of TSSD as a permanent national program would be feasible and would benefit many Medicare-eligible military retirees, relative to the military health benefits for which they were eligible prior to TSSD and TFL.