Anyone have Tricare and Medicare

julie · May 28, 2008

Yes Faust, it's for retirees (those who did their 20 years, and those who did under 20 years but were medically retired). I too think the system is f'ed up and that retirees should be covered at 100%...they aren't though and it's a really broken system. For veterans and for those with health problems. I agree wholeheartedly with your previous post.

So more on what Alisha said, if you are a dependent (spouse, child...) of an Active Duty member and you get SSDI, to reap the best benefits, decline the part B (the part you pay for) and notify your tricare office that you do NOT have part B. This will make you "dual elgible" which means that ultimately your covered under tricare Prime, where everything is covered at 100% if at the MTF or if you have a referral for a specialist.

If you are a dependent of a retiree the situation is different because the retiree is only eligible for Tricare for life, which is what the dependents are also eligible for. In this case, I'd highly recommend you keep your medicare part A and part B coverage.

If you are a dependent of active duty OR retiree and you recieve SSI and are eligible for medicaid coverage, TAKE it. Medicaid will always be secondary, but there are no silly clauses like there are with tricare and medicare. Not the difference, I remember medicaid as "for those who need aid" (those with less money) and medicare as those who are "old and need care"

Glad you got it all figured out Alisha, I learned something new today too. guess you can't drop part A <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

julie · May 28, 2008

Yes Faust, it's for retirees (those who did their 20 years, and those who did under 20 years but were medically retired). I too think the system is f'ed up and that retirees should be covered at 100%...they aren't though and it's a really broken system. For veterans and for those with health problems. I agree wholeheartedly with your previous post.

So more on what Alisha said, if you are a dependent (spouse, child...) of an Active Duty member and you get SSDI, to reap the best benefits, decline the part B (the part you pay for) and notify your tricare office that you do NOT have part B. This will make you "dual elgible" which means that ultimately your covered under tricare Prime, where everything is covered at 100% if at the MTF or if you have a referral for a specialist.

If you are a dependent of a retiree the situation is different because the retiree is only eligible for Tricare for life, which is what the dependents are also eligible for. In this case, I'd highly recommend you keep your medicare part A and part B coverage.

If you are a dependent of active duty OR retiree and you recieve SSI and are eligible for medicaid coverage, TAKE it. Medicaid will always be secondary, but there are no silly clauses like there are with tricare and medicare. Not the difference, I remember medicaid as "for those who need aid" (those with less money) and medicare as those who are "old and need care"

Glad you got it all figured out Alisha, I learned something new today too. guess you can't drop part A <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

julie · May 28, 2008

Yes Faust, it's for retirees (those who did their 20 years, and those who did under 20 years but were medically retired). I too think the system is f'ed up and that retirees should be covered at 100%...they aren't though and it's a really broken system. For veterans and for those with health problems. I agree wholeheartedly with your previous post.

So more on what Alisha said, if you are a dependent (spouse, child...) of an Active Duty member and you get SSDI, to reap the best benefits, decline the part B (the part you pay for) and notify your tricare office that you do NOT have part B. This will make you "dual elgible" which means that ultimately your covered under tricare Prime, where everything is covered at 100% if at the MTF or if you have a referral for a specialist.

If you are a dependent of a retiree the situation is different because the retiree is only eligible for Tricare for life, which is what the dependents are also eligible for. In this case, I'd highly recommend you keep your medicare part A and part B coverage.

If you are a dependent of active duty OR retiree and you recieve SSI and are eligible for medicaid coverage, TAKE it. Medicaid will always be secondary, but there are no silly clauses like there are with tricare and medicare. Not the difference, I remember medicaid as "for those who need aid" (those with less money) and medicare as those who are "old and need care"

Glad you got it all figured out Alisha, I learned something new today too. guess you can't drop part A <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

julie · May 28, 2008

Yes Faust, it's for retirees (those who did their 20 years, and those who did under 20 years but were medically retired). I too think the system is f'ed up and that retirees should be covered at 100%...they aren't though and it's a really broken system. For veterans and for those with health problems. I agree wholeheartedly with your previous post.

So more on what Alisha said, if you are a dependent (spouse, child...) of an Active Duty member and you get SSDI, to reap the best benefits, decline the part B (the part you pay for) and notify your tricare office that you do NOT have part B. This will make you "dual elgible" which means that ultimately your covered under tricare Prime, where everything is covered at 100% if at the MTF or if you have a referral for a specialist.

If you are a dependent of a retiree the situation is different because the retiree is only eligible for Tricare for life, which is what the dependents are also eligible for. In this case, I'd highly recommend you keep your medicare part A and part B coverage.

If you are a dependent of active duty OR retiree and you recieve SSI and are eligible for medicaid coverage, TAKE it. Medicaid will always be secondary, but there are no silly clauses like there are with tricare and medicare. Not the difference, I remember medicaid as "for those who need aid" (those with less money) and medicare as those who are "old and need care"

Glad you got it all figured out Alisha, I learned something new today too. guess you can't drop part A <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

julie · May 28, 2008

Yes Faust, it's for retirees (those who did their 20 years, and those who did under 20 years but were medically retired). I too think the system is f'ed up and that retirees should be covered at 100%...they aren't though and it's a really broken system. For veterans and for those with health problems. I agree wholeheartedly with your previous post.
 
 So more on what Alisha said, if you are a dependent (spouse, child...) of an Active Duty member and you get SSDI, to reap the best benefits, decline the part B (the part you pay for) and notify your tricare office that you do NOT have part B. This will make you "dual elgible" which means that ultimately your covered under tricare Prime, where everything is covered at 100% if at the MTF or if you have a referral for a specialist.
 
 If you are a dependent of a retiree the situation is different because the retiree is only eligible for Tricare for life, which is what the dependents are also eligible for. In this case, I'd highly recommend you keep your medicare part A and part B coverage.
 
 If you are a dependent of active duty OR retiree and you recieve SSI and are eligible for medicaid coverage, TAKE it. Medicaid will always be secondary, but there are no silly clauses like there are with tricare and medicare. Not the difference, I remember medicaid as "for those who need aid" (those with less money) and medicare as those who are "old and need care"
 
 Glad you got it all figured out Alisha, I learned something new today too. guess you can't drop part A <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

Faust · May 28, 2008

I don't know how people qualify for medicaid. I looked into it a long time ago and it was laughable how little you are allowed to own, in the form of ANYTHING of value in order to get it. They even go as far as what the value of your car is. They really stack it deep to deny you. In this country you are set if you:

#1 Are rich so you can afford your own healthcare or pay for it youself out of pocket like Bill Gates could

or

#2 Appeared butt naked on earth with literally nothing of value (and I don't mean birth).

As I have said many times, our whole healthcare paradigm is badly flawed. Our system will continue to be extremely broken as long as health care is based on a for profit model. Silly novelty approaches to reshape the same model won't help us. We need a completely different model that is based on 100% coverage, reasonable premiums/copays for EVERYONE, and not being profit based. Sadly our fat cat politicians and their families have wonderful health insurance, so why would they care if some sickly CF patient has to come up with $1400 or much more out of pocket just to be able to breath that month?

If I didn't have my mother or my fiance, I literally have no idea what I would do. I'd venture to say the vast majority of CF patients have either their family, spose, or private company insurance to help them survive. Unless you are unbelievably destitute, how could you get the meds and treatments that you need on medicare? I've heard of medicare supplemental insurnce but never looked into. My sneaking suspicion is that it's total crap and based on a cap system that would disqualify us very fast. How on earth can a CF patient pay 20% of their total retail med costs per month?

I'm not sure of the total costs, or the current retail value, but I remember pulmozyme to retail for a couple thousand. So lets say 2000+2000 (a month dose = two boxes) of pulmo. 40 bucks for hypertonic. Colistin (generic) was billed to me retail for one month once due to a cleric fug up, if i remember right it was somewhere around 3000 or 3500, so lets say 3000. Albuterol is negligible (like 10 bucks). Then I remember ultrase mt20 used to retail at a dollar a pill (who knows now, but thats what it was close to before for me). I get about 1000 a month. So that is an additional 1000 bucks. Now let's ad an additional 200 for general other oral meds (i'm sure that is very low, i'm sure some of you guys take a ton of other stuff).

That comes to $8240. That is just a very vague, not current guestimate on prices I used to remember. So 20% of that (out of pocket, what medicare can sucker you into paying) is $1648. Of course that does not include copays for doctor visits, and the copays you would have to pay while paying that 20%. Then there is the horrendous "donut hole" of medicare programs where I believe you have to pay 100% of the meds cost until you reach a large out of pocket cost ceiling, then catastrophic care kicks in...

So just from the very vague basics that we/I do know, applying this to myself, just the meds per month would be 1648 dollars a month out of my pocket. It's a double edged sword of stupid. If you could afford 1648 a month in out of pocket expenses, you wouldn't have medicare anyway, you would be on a private plan usually through your employerer. But if you are on medicare, you certainly could not afford that monthly. I don't know anyone who gets that much per month TOTAL in benefits.

The illusion of "Letting the free market dictate our health care" as one of the presidential candidates says is a crackpipe dream. The "free market" (profit based) healthcare system, that has been this way forever, has been broken this bad forever, and letting something stay the same and continuing to fester = more of the same. And if it's broken, and no one atleast tries to fix it, it will continue to remain broken.

Maybe we can magically give all of our politicians grand kids CF. Then maybe we would live in a more logical, less greedy world.

Faust · May 28, 2008

I don't know how people qualify for medicaid. I looked into it a long time ago and it was laughable how little you are allowed to own, in the form of ANYTHING of value in order to get it. They even go as far as what the value of your car is. They really stack it deep to deny you. In this country you are set if you:

#1 Are rich so you can afford your own healthcare or pay for it youself out of pocket like Bill Gates could

or

#2 Appeared butt naked on earth with literally nothing of value (and I don't mean birth).

As I have said many times, our whole healthcare paradigm is badly flawed. Our system will continue to be extremely broken as long as health care is based on a for profit model. Silly novelty approaches to reshape the same model won't help us. We need a completely different model that is based on 100% coverage, reasonable premiums/copays for EVERYONE, and not being profit based. Sadly our fat cat politicians and their families have wonderful health insurance, so why would they care if some sickly CF patient has to come up with $1400 or much more out of pocket just to be able to breath that month?

If I didn't have my mother or my fiance, I literally have no idea what I would do. I'd venture to say the vast majority of CF patients have either their family, spose, or private company insurance to help them survive. Unless you are unbelievably destitute, how could you get the meds and treatments that you need on medicare? I've heard of medicare supplemental insurnce but never looked into. My sneaking suspicion is that it's total crap and based on a cap system that would disqualify us very fast. How on earth can a CF patient pay 20% of their total retail med costs per month?

I'm not sure of the total costs, or the current retail value, but I remember pulmozyme to retail for a couple thousand. So lets say 2000+2000 (a month dose = two boxes) of pulmo. 40 bucks for hypertonic. Colistin (generic) was billed to me retail for one month once due to a cleric fug up, if i remember right it was somewhere around 3000 or 3500, so lets say 3000. Albuterol is negligible (like 10 bucks). Then I remember ultrase mt20 used to retail at a dollar a pill (who knows now, but thats what it was close to before for me). I get about 1000 a month. So that is an additional 1000 bucks. Now let's ad an additional 200 for general other oral meds (i'm sure that is very low, i'm sure some of you guys take a ton of other stuff).

That comes to $8240. That is just a very vague, not current guestimate on prices I used to remember. So 20% of that (out of pocket, what medicare can sucker you into paying) is $1648. Of course that does not include copays for doctor visits, and the copays you would have to pay while paying that 20%. Then there is the horrendous "donut hole" of medicare programs where I believe you have to pay 100% of the meds cost until you reach a large out of pocket cost ceiling, then catastrophic care kicks in...

So just from the very vague basics that we/I do know, applying this to myself, just the meds per month would be 1648 dollars a month out of my pocket. It's a double edged sword of stupid. If you could afford 1648 a month in out of pocket expenses, you wouldn't have medicare anyway, you would be on a private plan usually through your employerer. But if you are on medicare, you certainly could not afford that monthly. I don't know anyone who gets that much per month TOTAL in benefits.

The illusion of "Letting the free market dictate our health care" as one of the presidential candidates says is a crackpipe dream. The "free market" (profit based) healthcare system, that has been this way forever, has been broken this bad forever, and letting something stay the same and continuing to fester = more of the same. And if it's broken, and no one atleast tries to fix it, it will continue to remain broken.

Maybe we can magically give all of our politicians grand kids CF. Then maybe we would live in a more logical, less greedy world.

Faust · May 28, 2008

I don't know how people qualify for medicaid. I looked into it a long time ago and it was laughable how little you are allowed to own, in the form of ANYTHING of value in order to get it. They even go as far as what the value of your car is. They really stack it deep to deny you. In this country you are set if you:

#1 Are rich so you can afford your own healthcare or pay for it youself out of pocket like Bill Gates could

or

#2 Appeared butt naked on earth with literally nothing of value (and I don't mean birth).

As I have said many times, our whole healthcare paradigm is badly flawed. Our system will continue to be extremely broken as long as health care is based on a for profit model. Silly novelty approaches to reshape the same model won't help us. We need a completely different model that is based on 100% coverage, reasonable premiums/copays for EVERYONE, and not being profit based. Sadly our fat cat politicians and their families have wonderful health insurance, so why would they care if some sickly CF patient has to come up with $1400 or much more out of pocket just to be able to breath that month?

If I didn't have my mother or my fiance, I literally have no idea what I would do. I'd venture to say the vast majority of CF patients have either their family, spose, or private company insurance to help them survive. Unless you are unbelievably destitute, how could you get the meds and treatments that you need on medicare? I've heard of medicare supplemental insurnce but never looked into. My sneaking suspicion is that it's total crap and based on a cap system that would disqualify us very fast. How on earth can a CF patient pay 20% of their total retail med costs per month?

I'm not sure of the total costs, or the current retail value, but I remember pulmozyme to retail for a couple thousand. So lets say 2000+2000 (a month dose = two boxes) of pulmo. 40 bucks for hypertonic. Colistin (generic) was billed to me retail for one month once due to a cleric fug up, if i remember right it was somewhere around 3000 or 3500, so lets say 3000. Albuterol is negligible (like 10 bucks). Then I remember ultrase mt20 used to retail at a dollar a pill (who knows now, but thats what it was close to before for me). I get about 1000 a month. So that is an additional 1000 bucks. Now let's ad an additional 200 for general other oral meds (i'm sure that is very low, i'm sure some of you guys take a ton of other stuff).

That comes to $8240. That is just a very vague, not current guestimate on prices I used to remember. So 20% of that (out of pocket, what medicare can sucker you into paying) is $1648. Of course that does not include copays for doctor visits, and the copays you would have to pay while paying that 20%. Then there is the horrendous "donut hole" of medicare programs where I believe you have to pay 100% of the meds cost until you reach a large out of pocket cost ceiling, then catastrophic care kicks in...

So just from the very vague basics that we/I do know, applying this to myself, just the meds per month would be 1648 dollars a month out of my pocket. It's a double edged sword of stupid. If you could afford 1648 a month in out of pocket expenses, you wouldn't have medicare anyway, you would be on a private plan usually through your employerer. But if you are on medicare, you certainly could not afford that monthly. I don't know anyone who gets that much per month TOTAL in benefits.

The illusion of "Letting the free market dictate our health care" as one of the presidential candidates says is a crackpipe dream. The "free market" (profit based) healthcare system, that has been this way forever, has been broken this bad forever, and letting something stay the same and continuing to fester = more of the same. And if it's broken, and no one atleast tries to fix it, it will continue to remain broken.

Maybe we can magically give all of our politicians grand kids CF. Then maybe we would live in a more logical, less greedy world.

Faust · May 28, 2008

I don't know how people qualify for medicaid. I looked into it a long time ago and it was laughable how little you are allowed to own, in the form of ANYTHING of value in order to get it. They even go as far as what the value of your car is. They really stack it deep to deny you. In this country you are set if you:

#1 Are rich so you can afford your own healthcare or pay for it youself out of pocket like Bill Gates could

or

#2 Appeared butt naked on earth with literally nothing of value (and I don't mean birth).

As I have said many times, our whole healthcare paradigm is badly flawed. Our system will continue to be extremely broken as long as health care is based on a for profit model. Silly novelty approaches to reshape the same model won't help us. We need a completely different model that is based on 100% coverage, reasonable premiums/copays for EVERYONE, and not being profit based. Sadly our fat cat politicians and their families have wonderful health insurance, so why would they care if some sickly CF patient has to come up with $1400 or much more out of pocket just to be able to breath that month?

If I didn't have my mother or my fiance, I literally have no idea what I would do. I'd venture to say the vast majority of CF patients have either their family, spose, or private company insurance to help them survive. Unless you are unbelievably destitute, how could you get the meds and treatments that you need on medicare? I've heard of medicare supplemental insurnce but never looked into. My sneaking suspicion is that it's total crap and based on a cap system that would disqualify us very fast. How on earth can a CF patient pay 20% of their total retail med costs per month?

I'm not sure of the total costs, or the current retail value, but I remember pulmozyme to retail for a couple thousand. So lets say 2000+2000 (a month dose = two boxes) of pulmo. 40 bucks for hypertonic. Colistin (generic) was billed to me retail for one month once due to a cleric fug up, if i remember right it was somewhere around 3000 or 3500, so lets say 3000. Albuterol is negligible (like 10 bucks). Then I remember ultrase mt20 used to retail at a dollar a pill (who knows now, but thats what it was close to before for me). I get about 1000 a month. So that is an additional 1000 bucks. Now let's ad an additional 200 for general other oral meds (i'm sure that is very low, i'm sure some of you guys take a ton of other stuff).

That comes to $8240. That is just a very vague, not current guestimate on prices I used to remember. So 20% of that (out of pocket, what medicare can sucker you into paying) is $1648. Of course that does not include copays for doctor visits, and the copays you would have to pay while paying that 20%. Then there is the horrendous "donut hole" of medicare programs where I believe you have to pay 100% of the meds cost until you reach a large out of pocket cost ceiling, then catastrophic care kicks in...

So just from the very vague basics that we/I do know, applying this to myself, just the meds per month would be 1648 dollars a month out of my pocket. It's a double edged sword of stupid. If you could afford 1648 a month in out of pocket expenses, you wouldn't have medicare anyway, you would be on a private plan usually through your employerer. But if you are on medicare, you certainly could not afford that monthly. I don't know anyone who gets that much per month TOTAL in benefits.

The illusion of "Letting the free market dictate our health care" as one of the presidential candidates says is a crackpipe dream. The "free market" (profit based) healthcare system, that has been this way forever, has been broken this bad forever, and letting something stay the same and continuing to fester = more of the same. And if it's broken, and no one atleast tries to fix it, it will continue to remain broken.

Maybe we can magically give all of our politicians grand kids CF. Then maybe we would live in a more logical, less greedy world.

Faust · May 28, 2008

I don't know how people qualify for medicaid. I looked into it a long time ago and it was laughable how little you are allowed to own, in the form of ANYTHING of value in order to get it. They even go as far as what the value of your car is. They really stack it deep to deny you. In this country you are set if you:
 
 #1 Are rich so you can afford your own healthcare or pay for it youself out of pocket like Bill Gates could
 
 or
 
 #2 Appeared butt naked on earth with literally nothing of value (and I don't mean birth).
 
 
 As I have said many times, our whole healthcare paradigm is badly flawed. Our system will continue to be extremely broken as long as health care is based on a for profit model. Silly novelty approaches to reshape the same model won't help us. We need a completely different model that is based on 100% coverage, reasonable premiums/copays for EVERYONE, and not being profit based. Sadly our fat cat politicians and their families have wonderful health insurance, so why would they care if some sickly CF patient has to come up with $1400 or much more out of pocket just to be able to breath that month?
 
 
 If I didn't have my mother or my fiance, I literally have no idea what I would do. I'd venture to say the vast majority of CF patients have either their family, spose, or private company insurance to help them survive. Unless you are unbelievably destitute, how could you get the meds and treatments that you need on medicare? I've heard of medicare supplemental insurnce but never looked into. My sneaking suspicion is that it's total crap and based on a cap system that would disqualify us very fast. How on earth can a CF patient pay 20% of their total retail med costs per month?
 
 I'm not sure of the total costs, or the current retail value, but I remember pulmozyme to retail for a couple thousand. So lets say 2000+2000 (a month dose = two boxes) of pulmo. 40 bucks for hypertonic. Colistin (generic) was billed to me retail for one month once due to a cleric fug up, if i remember right it was somewhere around 3000 or 3500, so lets say 3000. Albuterol is negligible (like 10 bucks). Then I remember ultrase mt20 used to retail at a dollar a pill (who knows now, but thats what it was close to before for me). I get about 1000 a month. So that is an additional 1000 bucks. Now let's ad an additional 200 for general other oral meds (i'm sure that is very low, i'm sure some of you guys take a ton of other stuff).
 
 That comes to $8240. That is just a very vague, not current guestimate on prices I used to remember. So 20% of that (out of pocket, what medicare can sucker you into paying) is $1648. Of course that does not include copays for doctor visits, and the copays you would have to pay while paying that 20%. Then there is the horrendous "donut hole" of medicare programs where I believe you have to pay 100% of the meds cost until you reach a large out of pocket cost ceiling, then catastrophic care kicks in...
 
 So just from the very vague basics that we/I do know, applying this to myself, just the meds per month would be 1648 dollars a month out of my pocket. It's a double edged sword of stupid. If you could afford 1648 a month in out of pocket expenses, you wouldn't have medicare anyway, you would be on a private plan usually through your employerer. But if you are on medicare, you certainly could not afford that monthly. I don't know anyone who gets that much per month TOTAL in benefits.
 
 The illusion of "Letting the free market dictate our health care" as one of the presidential candidates says is a crackpipe dream. The "free market" (profit based) healthcare system, that has been this way forever, has been broken this bad forever, and letting something stay the same and continuing to fester = more of the same. And if it's broken, and no one atleast tries to fix it, it will continue to remain broken.
 
 
 Maybe we can magically give all of our politicians grand kids CF. Then maybe we would live in a more logical, less greedy world.

Liza · May 29, 2008

Hey Julie, Thanks for the info. I just may take you up on your offer of additional help a little later on once all the family graduations for this year are done and over with. We always used to complain about CHAMPUS (way old coverage), it was a pain in the rear, then we got MedExcel (we were in AZ then, only some states had it, guess it was a trial thing) that was much better, then came TriCare (we had TriCare Europe first) and that was great our first experience with total 100% coverage. After doing 26 yrs we thought why take a chance an opted for TriCare prime only because of the girls. Figured we'd never get coverage for them in the civilian world. We have tried looking into making Anna a permanent dependent but have hit some obsticals. Like no one really knowing what we are supposed to do. But TriCare has no bearing on that decision, it's up to each particular service. We have two more years to get that taken care of, if we can. I say, it doesn't hurt to try and let them officially tell me no. Now that she is post transplant though, I worry even more about how she is going to be covered after she turns 23. No insurance company is going to want to touch her with a ten foot pole. Anyway, I will definantly keep you in mind. Thanks again.

Liza · May 29, 2008

Hey Julie, Thanks for the info. I just may take you up on your offer of additional help a little later on once all the family graduations for this year are done and over with. We always used to complain about CHAMPUS (way old coverage), it was a pain in the rear, then we got MedExcel (we were in AZ then, only some states had it, guess it was a trial thing) that was much better, then came TriCare (we had TriCare Europe first) and that was great our first experience with total 100% coverage. After doing 26 yrs we thought why take a chance an opted for TriCare prime only because of the girls. Figured we'd never get coverage for them in the civilian world. We have tried looking into making Anna a permanent dependent but have hit some obsticals. Like no one really knowing what we are supposed to do. But TriCare has no bearing on that decision, it's up to each particular service. We have two more years to get that taken care of, if we can. I say, it doesn't hurt to try and let them officially tell me no. Now that she is post transplant though, I worry even more about how she is going to be covered after she turns 23. No insurance company is going to want to touch her with a ten foot pole. Anyway, I will definantly keep you in mind. Thanks again.

Liza · May 29, 2008

Hey Julie, Thanks for the info. I just may take you up on your offer of additional help a little later on once all the family graduations for this year are done and over with. We always used to complain about CHAMPUS (way old coverage), it was a pain in the rear, then we got MedExcel (we were in AZ then, only some states had it, guess it was a trial thing) that was much better, then came TriCare (we had TriCare Europe first) and that was great our first experience with total 100% coverage. After doing 26 yrs we thought why take a chance an opted for TriCare prime only because of the girls. Figured we'd never get coverage for them in the civilian world. We have tried looking into making Anna a permanent dependent but have hit some obsticals. Like no one really knowing what we are supposed to do. But TriCare has no bearing on that decision, it's up to each particular service. We have two more years to get that taken care of, if we can. I say, it doesn't hurt to try and let them officially tell me no. Now that she is post transplant though, I worry even more about how she is going to be covered after she turns 23. No insurance company is going to want to touch her with a ten foot pole. Anyway, I will definantly keep you in mind. Thanks again.

Liza · May 29, 2008

Hey Julie, Thanks for the info. I just may take you up on your offer of additional help a little later on once all the family graduations for this year are done and over with. We always used to complain about CHAMPUS (way old coverage), it was a pain in the rear, then we got MedExcel (we were in AZ then, only some states had it, guess it was a trial thing) that was much better, then came TriCare (we had TriCare Europe first) and that was great our first experience with total 100% coverage. After doing 26 yrs we thought why take a chance an opted for TriCare prime only because of the girls. Figured we'd never get coverage for them in the civilian world. We have tried looking into making Anna a permanent dependent but have hit some obsticals. Like no one really knowing what we are supposed to do. But TriCare has no bearing on that decision, it's up to each particular service. We have two more years to get that taken care of, if we can. I say, it doesn't hurt to try and let them officially tell me no. Now that she is post transplant though, I worry even more about how she is going to be covered after she turns 23. No insurance company is going to want to touch her with a ten foot pole. Anyway, I will definantly keep you in mind. Thanks again.

Liza · May 29, 2008

Hey Julie, Thanks for the info. I just may take you up on your offer of additional help a little later on once all the family graduations for this year are done and over with. We always used to complain about CHAMPUS (way old coverage), it was a pain in the rear, then we got MedExcel (we were in AZ then, only some states had it, guess it was a trial thing) that was much better, then came TriCare (we had TriCare Europe first) and that was great our first experience with total 100% coverage. After doing 26 yrs we thought why take a chance an opted for TriCare prime only because of the girls. Figured we'd never get coverage for them in the civilian world. We have tried looking into making Anna a permanent dependent but have hit some obsticals. Like no one really knowing what we are supposed to do. But TriCare has no bearing on that decision, it's up to each particular service. We have two more years to get that taken care of, if we can. I say, it doesn't hurt to try and let them officially tell me no. Now that she is post transplant though, I worry even more about how she is going to be covered after she turns 23. No insurance company is going to want to touch her with a ten foot pole. Anyway, I will definantly keep you in mind. Thanks again.

Asexyblond23 · May 29, 2008