Battle looms over military health care reform.

* Members of the Armed Services Committees are expected to make a push this year for military health care reform. But opposition from advocacy groups and law-makers standing for reelection may stymie those efforts, analysts said.

In recent years, Pentagon officials have been sounding the alarm about the need to rein in personnel costs. Health care for troops, retirees and their families now costs the Pentagon about $50 billion annually, roughly 10 percent of its budget.

"One out of every 10 dollars is going to health care," said Stephen Ondra, a former military doctor and the current chief medical officer for the Health Care Service Corp., at a recent Center for a New American Security conference. "We have to do that in a more efficient way ... that will give more flexibility in terms of budget dollars to the Department of Defense" for other priorities such as modernization.

In a report last year, the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission estimated that implementing its health care reform proposals--including compelling non-active duty beneficiaries to select commercial insurance plans--would save the Pentagon more than $6 billion annually.

The commission "provided a nice pathway," said Tina Jonas, former Pentagon comptroller, at a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies conference. "I don't know how far they [lawmakers] will go but ... it could provide a nice potential relief' for modernization accounts.

But advocacy groups are lining up against potential changes to the TRICARE system.

"Proposals earlier this year recommended...