Grave Concerns for Tricare Beneficiaries

Floor Speech

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Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come to the floor of the House of Representatives to discuss the need for TRICARE beneficiaries to have access to quality healthcare.

I thank Mr. Buddy Carter, my friend from Georgia, for his leadership on this important issue.

The military population in my home district of Colorado Springs is well over 100,000 people. It includes Active-Duty, National Guard, Reserves, retirees, and veterans, including their families and dependents, the number of TRICARE beneficiaries in my district is substantial.

The impact of Express Scripts cutting the number of in-network pharmacies and reducing reimbursements has been felt in Colorado Springs.

I have heard from constituents who have had trouble finding quality pharmacies for their prescriptions and who are faced with increasingly long wait times, decreased hours of service, and unscheduled closures.

Additionally, beneficiaries in my district have had to change their pharmacy numerous times as TRICARE rates continually fluctuate.

The process of finding a new pharmacy takes up a substantial amount of time and beneficiaries ultimately cannot reliably depend on a pharmacy to consistently deliver their necessary medicine.

The men and women serving in our military, retirees and their families who serve alongside them, deserve more options for their healthcare, not less.

Access to quality, accessible, reliable pharmacies should not be something that our military families have to worry about.

I urge the Defense Health Agency and Express Scripts to carefully consider the impact these recent changes have made on military families and to make the changes necessary to facilitate increased pharmacy access and availability to beneficiaries of the TRICARE network.

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