For military families already stretching their budgets to cover the costs of service life, a new round of health insurance premium hikes is arriving with little warning — and a price tag that rivals the monthly rent in many American cities. Starting January 1, young adult dependents of military service members and retirees will face some of the steepest healthcare costs the program has ever seen.
The Defense Health Agency has confirmed that premiums for Tricare Young Adult (TYA) — the health coverage option available to military dependents between ages 21 and 26 — will climb significantly in 2027. Beneficiaries enrolled in TYA Prime will pay $893 per month, while those in TYA Select will pay $394 per month. That’s an increase of 12.5% and 8.5%, respectively, compared to 2026.
Zoom out further, and the numbers become even harder to ignore. A decade ago, TYA Prime enrollees paid $306 a month in premiums, while those in the standard plan paid $228 per month. Today’s rates represent a 192% increase for TYA Prime and a 73% increase for TYA Select since 2016 — increases that far outpace inflation and wage growth for most military households.
What This Means for Family Budgets
When you do the math annually, the reality hits hard. Families with young adult dependents on TYA will pay anywhere from $4,728 to $10,716 per year just to maintain coverage for one child aged 21 to 26. That’s a significant financial burden layered on top of the costs families already carry.
By comparison, active-duty families without older children pay nothing in premiums for Tricare Prime and between $50 and $397 per year for Tricare Select. Military retiree families pay between $765 and $1,191 annually in enrollment fees. TYA beneficiaries, meanwhile, are effectively paying rates more aligned with unsubsidized private insurance than with the coverage available to the rest of their family.
That gap exists by design — and by law. Unlike other Tricare programs, Tricare Young Adult must fully cover its own costs, with no government subsidy. That means the entire financial burden falls on the young adults and their families enrolled in the program.
The Defense Health Agency pointed to the unusually small pool of TYA Prime enrollees — just 1,287 people — as the primary driver of rising costs.
“A relatively small pool of insured population, combined with a high number of healthcare encounters, result in higher premium rates, particularly for TYA Prime,”
DHA officials said in a statement.
A Program at Risk of Losing the People It’s Meant to Help
Advocates are raising alarms that skyrocketing premiums could push young military dependents to simply go without health coverage altogether — a dangerous outcome for individuals and a costly one for the broader healthcare system.
The National Military Family Association, a nonprofit based in Alexandria, Virginia, that advocates on behalf of military personnel and their families, says the Defense Health Agency’s explanations don’t go far enough. The organization says it is actively working to understand what specific changes in healthcare use or costs are driving these increases — and why TYA Prime costs are rising faster than TYA Select.
Eileen Huck, director of government relations for the National Military Family Association, said the cycle is becoming increasingly difficult to break.
“It is a vicious cycle because the costs are fully borne by the beneficiary. There’s no government offset. So, as the costs have gone up, young people who either can find less expensive options or feel that they are healthy enough to go without, risk going without health coverage,”
Huck told Military Times.
When healthier young adults drop coverage because they can’t afford it, the pool of remaining enrollees skews toward those with higher healthcare needs — which pushes premiums even higher. It’s a well-documented pattern in insurance markets, and it’s playing out in real time within TYA.
The Civilian Comparison That’s Hard to Ignore
One of the central frustrations for military families is that their civilian counterparts don’t face the same problem. Under the Affordable Care Act, private employers are required to offer coverage to employees’ children up to age 26 — at no additional premium cost to the child. Tricare Young Adult was created in 2011 to give military dependents a similar option, but the key difference is that it comes with a price tag that civilian employer plans don’t.
For context, the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that the average annual cost of a U.S. family’s employer-provided health plan was $28,303 in 2026 — a cost largely absorbed by employers, not employees.
“We absolutely feel that it’s unfair for military families to have to pay extra for their young adults’ health coverage when … civilian families with employer-based plans get that coverage automatically,”
Huck said.
Legislation Stalled, Families Waiting
Congress has been aware of this disparity for years. Since 2021, bipartisan legislation has been introduced that would allow military dependents to remain on standard Tricare until age 26 — the same benefit civilian employees’ children receive. The current version of the bill is sponsored by Rep. Patrick Ryan (D-N.Y.) in the House and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) in the Senate, and has accumulated 98 co-sponsors from both parties. But it has yet to become law.
In the meantime, families are left to navigate a coverage cliff that disproportionately affects young adults who aren’t in college. Under current rules, military dependents can stay on a sponsor’s regular Tricare until age 21 — or 23 if they are enrolled full-time in college. Those who aren’t students lose access even earlier, at which point TYA becomes their only military-connected option.
Huck called that policy logic flawed.
“It really makes no sense that health coverage is connected to college enrollment,”
she said.
“We’ve always been concerned that large numbers of military-connected young adults are going without health coverage because of the cost.”
The National Military Family Association is pushing for an immediate fix as well: at minimum, extending standard Tricare coverage for all military dependents to at least age 23, regardless of college enrollment, while the longer-term legislative solution works its way through Congress.
Currently, roughly 27,600 beneficiaries are enrolled in TYA Select, while just 1,287 remain on TYA Prime. The stark drop in TYA Prime enrollment compared to a decade ago — when 26,910 were enrolled — tells its own story about what happens when premiums become unaffordable.
