Reserve, National Guard on long call-ups to get more access to healthcare

More Reserve and National Guard troops who serve long stints on active duty orders may get access to healthcare after a sailor’s class action lawsuit. A new Pentagon policy released Aug. 10 could make tens of thousands of troops eligible for six months of healthcare coverage and pay back out-of-pocket costs incurred by thousands more, advocates told Task & Purpose.

Pentagon officials did not give a reason for the changes but the policy addresses a loophole in eligibility behind a pending class action lawsuit led by a Naval Reservist who found himself ineligible for healthcare after a long stint on active duty. 

Navy Reserve Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Gontarz served in the Navy for 10 years before he joined the Reserve. He was given full-time orders which lasted for 1,400 consecutive days, or nearly four years before they came to an end in 2025, according to federal court documents.

When his orders ended, Gontarz expected to get six months of medical and dental insurance under the Transitional Assistance Management Program, or TAMP. That program grants 180 days of health insurance for themselves and their families to reservists and National Guardsmen coming off of long-term active duty orders. But according to court documents, Gontarz was denied TAMP healthcare because his orders did not note that they were “in support of a contingency operation,” which determined his eligibility in the Pentagon’s benefits coding system.

Gontarz sued the Pentagon with the National Veterans Legal Services Program in April. The suit claimed that the Department of Defense had denied TAMP to “otherwise eligible servicemembers based on an internal administrative coding requirement,” according to the federal complaint.

The new Pentagon rule changes TAMP eligibility to include Gontarz and others like him who volunteered or were “called or ordered to, or retained on, active duty for at least 30 days,” for federal contingency operation orders. Service members no longer need to “demonstrate” that their service was “substantively connected in some way to a war, a contingency operation, or a national emergency,” according to the Aug. 10 Pentagon memo. 

“The military was denying those benefits through a coding mechanism that has now been changed to give the reservists the benefits they have earned,” said Rochelle Bobroff, a lawyer for the NVLSP who filed the lawsuit. “We are very happy that through our litigation, that has been changed prospectively, and those who were harmed in the past six years from our complaint being filed will be able to submit bills for reimbursement.” 

Pentagon officials confirmed the memo but did not provide further comment because the litigation is ongoing.

Bobroff said they are still in discussions about coding changes for other service member records and the notification process for troops and families who were previously denied benefits. 

Steve Minyard, a former advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, said the new policy encompasses a much broader population because it includes troops who were “activated under a period of emergency” — a legal declaration that has been in place since Sept. 11, 2001. He said tens of thousands of troops are activated each year for a range of missions that now qualify for healthcare. In fiscal year 2026 alone, more than 161,000 Reservists and National Guardsmen were authorized by Congress to serve on active duty orders.

“DOD’s got a new budget item they’ve got to look at because they’re going to be giving TAMP going forward to all of those 120,000-whatever people that are activated 30 days and over regardless because they’re all activated under a period of emergency,” said Minyard, who is now a program director for the Reserve Organization of America.

According to the memo, Pentagon officials are extending “retroactive eligibility” to troops who were denied TAMP since April 24, 2020 because their service was “not deemed to be connected in some way to a war, a contingency operation, or a national emergency.”

Service members will be able to request reimbursements for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses that they incurred for their own care or covered family members, according to the memo.

Minyard said a greater number of Reservists and Guardsmen are activated for missions than the number of troops who are actually sent “forward.” This could include personnel who were activated for COVID response measures, operations in the Middle East and even large training exercises overseas, he added.

“I think the numbers of folks that were denied overwhelm the numbers of people that were granted,” he said. 

Troops activated for combat operations against Iran, once called Epic Fury and more recently classified as “overseas operations,” would still qualify because of the new definitions, Minyard said.

“It’s really everybody that wasn’t included in the named operation,” Minyard said. “Their orders don’t say ‘in support of Epic Fury’ so that number is going to be huge.”

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