The TRICARE health benefit offered by the Department of Defense (DoD) to military members, their families, and military retiree families is an important element of military compensation, but has challenges with cost to the government and beneficiary satisfaction. The Congress has directed DoD to implement pilots to begin exploring ways to comprehensively reform TRICARE. The United States healthcare system continues to struggle with similar rising healthcare costs and quality challenges. The root causes of TRICARE’s challenges are very similar to the challenges of other large public health benefit programs (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, and the emerging Veterans Choice program) and issues faced in private health benefits. If rigorously developed and implemented, TRICARE reform pilots could provide information for the broader national healthcare reform debate.