Tricare is as dysfunctional as the rest of our non-system of health care. It’s costly, redundant and driven by the notion that the military types deserve something special in return for their service. The problem is that life long health care is an expensive gift that simply doesn’t stop giving (or rather taking). This is a problem:
Despite dire warnings from three defense secretaries about the uncontrollable cost, Congress has repeatedly rebuffed Pentagon efforts to establish higher out-of-pocket fees and enrollment costs for military family and retiree health care as an initial step in addressing a harsh fiscal reality. The cost of military health care has almost tripled since 2001, from $19 billion to $53 billion in 2012, and stands at 10 percent of the entire defense budget.
Read the rest of the article to understand what’s happened.
Medicynical Note: The truth is all citizens need affordable access to health care. Our haphazard piecemeal approach has resulted in a totally dysfunctional, historically expensive non system that leaves 50 million people without coverage.
The crisis in health care is self inflicted and solvable (every other industrialized country has a national health plan). Our excessive costs result from the inordinate influence the health industrial complex has over our legislators controlling any real attempt to assure quality and economy in health care.
It is ironic that the rather conservative military types strongly oppose a national health care solution, but want just that for themselves.
Medicynic 