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Mission Impossible or an Impossible Dream?
By Thomas D. Segel
April 4, 2002

Pete is grumpier than usual this morning. It could be due to the painful cyst on his posterior and the fact he has been sitting in the attack mode at his computer for more than three hours. It could also be because his cadre of volunteer writers as failed to respond as requested. Regardless of the reason, he is ranting at just about everyone on his extensive mailing list, which reaches a vast number of military active duty, reserve and retied personnel. His purpose... his dedication, is to provide much needed information on a variety of military life related issues to American military families. It is proving to be no easy task.

Looking more like Grizzly Adams than the retired career Army officer he is, R. M. "Pete" Peterson also reflects his background before he moved through the ranks. At any given time, his words and conduct are more in tune with those of a very irritated Sergeant Major. He is harsh with his criticism of governmental bungling and lack of professionalism. He rages at political correctness and the presentation of false images. He fumes at the continued refusal of our national leadership to accept responsibility and assume the leadership role demanded of them, if multiple injustices to American military personnel are to be corrected.

Most of Pete's anger is directed at a variety of military health care concerns. Because of care denied military friends and family members, several years ago he made the issue a special crusade. To accomplish this investigative work, he formed the Military Health Care Reclamation Group. He and his associates have searched out and examined the history of broken promises made to service personnel by the United States government.

Historically the government recruited career military personnel with promises of many benefits for twenty or more years of active duty. Among those promises was one which pledged career military men and women would earn health care for themselves and their dependents for life. That promise , like so many others has been broken by our national leadership. Our own Department of Justice is even waging an ongoing campaign to assure retired service personnel will continue to be refused care. This is happening even though the United States Court of Appeals has ruled the federal government broke its contract with those who completed military careers.

So, Pete and his supporters continue to do their detective work and report it through a web site he operates and funds privately. Military health care issues, family issues, correspondence from active duty and retired service members, veterans problems and Veterans Administration matters all make it on to the many pages of Military E'Sprit.net , primarily because he feels the whole truth is never told through government publications.

There is special disdain shown by the entire group for the military Tricare program. Tricare for Life is an entitlement program which supplements Medicare for military retirees over age 65 and is considered effective at this time. However, its counterpart, Tricare Standard, which is supposed to provide care for retirees under Medicare age is a disaster.

Pete, who has learned all the "ins and outs" of the program cannot even find a doctor within 200 miles of his Arkansas home which will accept payment under the Tricare Standard . He recently was forced to make a more than 400 mile trip to a Veterans Administration hospital, to receive some needed care. "I couldn't even be a retiree", he said, " I had to get care as a Vet." This is an issue which causes great anger among military retirees. Members of congress, federal employees, veterans, even the poor on MedicAid, all have better health plans than the government has provided to those who served long, faithful and often dangerous service.

Physicians have declined to accept Tricare Standard patients for one simple reason. It would most likely cost them money out of their own pockets for each retired military patient treated. A Texas doctor pointed out many within the medical profession are even starting to reject Medicare because it has such a low reimbursement rate. The Tricare Standard reimbursement is even lower than Medicare.

When Medicare was first introduced, payment to physicians was about 80% of the billed service. Through the years the payment rate dropped to 70%, 60% and now less than 58% of each dollar billed. The doctor stated costs were almost 52 cents on the dollar, leaving a profit of less than 6 cents to the physician for each dollar of services billed.

Using just one example from Fairfax, Virginia, a doctor charged $65 for a breathing capacity test. If the 52% cost factor is true, the out of pocket costs to that doctor were $33.80. Medicare reimbursed at a price of $33.60. This left the doctor a profit of $2.40 for his services. If he had accepted a Tricare Standard retiree, the reimbursement rate would have been $26.37 or a loss to the doctor of $4.83 for treating his military patient.

For those who may think these are only the comments of some disgruntled former military personnel, the Military Health Care Reclamation Group makes a point of noting everything is substantiated by supporting information, links, articles and amplifying data. Information on how to obtain all of this documentation can be found with a visit to the Military E'Sprit.net web site.

As for "Pete" Peterson, he will continue collecting data which has already grown to the size of a book length case study detailing all of the problems within the combined Tricare programs. "We write, call, e-mail, attend meetings... but, with the government nothing much changes. The sad thing is we have little to no support from the Department of Defense... and the leadership in Congress doesn't even have a clue as to what is really happening to thousands and thousands of military families."

Pete is a determined individual, who would appear to many as another version of the age old Don Quixote. He is fighting a seemingly impossible fight and tilting at some huge windmills. Some say he is embarked on a mission impossible, while others call it an impossible dream. Pete says it is just a bunch of damned angry warriors who will keep on fighting until they win.