TRICARE Stepping Up Their Game -- August 25, 2023

Locator: 45472TRICARE. 

Absolutely, positively amazing. Color me impressed.

Link here.

This is really, really amazing. Medicare will not cover health care costs if not approved by FDA and/or other government agencies -- there are exceptions.

However, "we" all know that there are a lot of medications, diagnostic tests (see list above), and therapeutic procedures that are beneficial but due to glacial bureaucracy the FDA has simply not approved them. The retired general officers managing Tricare know this and have taken the bull by the horns. 

See above.

I am very, very impressed. 

For those over retired military 65+, Medicare is "first" payer, and then Tricare covers that which Medicare does not pay. The co-pays are practically zero and the one-year deductible is inconsequential. The premiums for both are pricey but those premiums are paid out of benefits so beneficiaries don't actually have to write a check in most cases.

For active duty military and their spouses, of course, Tricare covers "everything."

"Someone" has estimated the lifetime benefit of TRICARE at well over a million dollars. I've heard even higher estimates. TRICARE: birth to death for active duty military families and retirees. 

The actual dollar benefit is less of an issue than is an unexpected hospital bill for $40,000 for routine gallbladder surgery (as an example) or a similar amount for a complicated fracture in one's high school football player. Don't even get me started on a major vehicle accident (although most folks have such medical insurance through their automobile insurance).

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Coverage, Billing, Payments

Absolutely 100% transparent and 100% "seamless."

And that's a fact, Jack.  

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The Book Club

Wow, wow, wow. I am a huge fan of Alison Weir who is probably the #1 historian of British royalty from the 1400s to the 1800s. She has a little cottage industry going.

I picked up 2003 Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley mostly as a lark. 

But as soon as I started reading, this turned out to be so very important. 

Henry VIII's assumption of the throne was a huge, huge, huge deal, but wow, at the time of Henry VIII's death -- a huge change in the relationship among Scotland, England, and France, and a huge change in the Protestant / Catholic relationship in Scotland and England.

This is a keeper.

Notes.