Washington, DC – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) today was awarded The Military Coalition’s 2005 Award of Merit in recognition of her tireless work to expand access to health care for members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families. The award is the Military Coalition’s highest honor.

“It is a deep privilege to have a chance to serve and support our men and women in uniform and to be recognized by an organization dedicated to the well-being of our troops and our veterans is a great honor,” said Senator Clinton. “Our men and women in uniform sacrifice so much to protect the freedoms that we enjoy, and we owe it to them to give our full support while they are in uniform and after they retire from service.”

At the awards ceremony, Senator Clinton was honored along with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for their bipartisan effort to extend access to TRICARE military health care benefits for members of the National Guard and Reserve. In July, Senators Clinton and Graham secured unanimous Senate passage of their proposal to expand access to healthcare benefits to all drilling members of the National Guard and Reserve regardless of their activation status. This builds on the expansion the Senators secured in last year’s Department of Defense Authorization bill which provides an extension of one additional year of TRICARE eligibility to Guard and Reserve Members for every 90 days of active duty.

Joe Barnes, Co-Chairman of the Military Coalition and National Executive Secretary of the Fleet Reserve Association, lauded Clinton and Graham for their efforts. “They’ve set a great example in working closely together to highlight this as a bipartisan issue that’s important for the country,” said Barnes. “They convinced a majority of senators to put aside party differences and recognize that we can’t demand such heavy sacrifices from Guard and Reserve families without doing our part to ensure they have health coverage continuity, regardless of their deployment status.”

The Military Coalition is comprised of 36 military and veterans organizations representing more than six million members around the world, including active duty, National Guard, Reserve, and retired members and veterans of the uniformed services, as well as their families and survivors.

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