After spending more than a year on deployment in Iraq with the Iowa Air National Guard, Allison Van Ginkel moved to Kansas City last year for a new job. Shortly after beginning her position, she learned her company had changed its eligibility criteria for coverage, meaning she would have to pay $221 per month from her own pocket for an individual policy.

Now, because of her overseas service and her re-enlistment in the Guard, Van Ginkel was able to sign up for a policy with a $75 monthly premium through a new program known as TRICARE Reserve Select.

She’s one of nearly 5,500 Iowa National Guard members called up to serve overseas since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks who are eligible to enroll themselves and their family members in the program, which became effective in April. To date, however, only 88 Iowa Guard members or their family members have enrolled, which military officials say is due to a lack of awareness of the 4-month-old program. It’s estimated that half of Iowa Guard and Reserve members are not covered by employer health insurance plans.

To help publicize the program, some of the Pentagon’s top health-care officials, together with representatives of the TriWest Healthcare Alliance, a Phoenix-based corporation that administers the TRICARE program in 21 states, visited Iowa National Guard units at Camp Dodge last month.

“This is an outreach program we’ve worked out in coordination with TriWest to make visible this enhanced benefit for Guard and Reserve members who have been activated, and their families, obviously,” said Col. Norman Spector, chief operating officer of the TRICARE Regional Office-West. “We’ve been very aggressive about it, especially in states where there are few active-duty bases.”

TriWest, whose TRICARE contract is the tenth-largest Department of Defense contract, is owned by an alliance of two university hospitals and 15 Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, including Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Iowa.

Guard and Reserve members and their families automatically continue to receive health-care benefits for 180 days following their release from active duty. The new program offers an option to continue those benefits, with one year of additional coverage available for each 90 days that were served on active duty. The member must sign up for an extension of status that matches their coverage period, however.

“The purpose of this legislation was really twofold, said Col. Kathleen Woody, chief medical officer with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs. “One is retention, and the other is to provide a benefit for those who have served overseas.”

Guard and Reserve members who qualify can get individual health coverage for $75 a month under current rates, or pay $233 per month for family coverage. Those rates represent 28 percent of the actual cost, with the remainder subsidized by the federal government.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for anyone to take,” said Van Ginkel, who in the Guard serves as an administrative sergeant with the 2133rd Transportation Squadron. With seven years of service in, she recently reenlisted for an additional six years and takes the possibility of another overseas deployment in stride.

“Going overseas is always hard,” she said, “but it’s your job. You take one day at a time and do what you have to do.”

For Jack Siemieniec, an Air Force Reservist from Des Moines who’s been deployed overseas twice since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the TRICARE plan is the first significant healthcare coverage he’s had outside of the insurance he receives when he’s on active duty.

“I was having a hard time justifying the cost of health insurance,” said Siemieniec, a staff sergeant with the 934th Airlift Wing in Minneapolis. “So I was very interested in the program when it came up. I feel a little better peace of mind, and the $75 coverage is something I can live with.” He recently re-enlisted for four years, which coincides with the TRICARE benefit he earned for his deployments to Germany and Uzbekistan.

As an air transporter, Siemieniec loads cargo and passengers onto aircraft, and he’s scheduled to deploy to Kuwait in September. He said he would have reenlisted whether the TRICARE benefit had been offered or not.

“A certain part of (reenlisting) isn’t just the extra money or income, if you like what you do,” he said. “I kind of enjoy the work. But I might feel different if I had spent a year ducking mortars and land mines.” According to a survey conducted last year by the Iowa Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, about half of the 14,000 Guard and Reserve members in the state are not covered by an employer health insurance plan.

“That’s because a lot of our Guard and Reserve folks are students, or they’re in entry-level jobs and aren’t established in a career field yet that offers benefits,” said Dave Rogers, executive director of that committee.

As for the new TRICARE program, “I’d be surprised if (employers) knew that a Guard or Reserve member was eligible for it,” Rogers said.

Though the committee has not yet begun any efforts to educate employers about the new program, “I think this (TRICARE benefit) will definitely become an item that we will be talking about for the benefit of the employer so they know that it’s there,” he said.