Donna and I are going to a Medicare seminar on base this morning. She turns 65 in May; I’ll get there in October. Gee, this is happening so fast!
Military retirees have a pretty good medical insurance plan called Tricare. At age 65 we get booted out of the program, but it’s not as bad as it sounds … what happens is that we switch over to Medicare, augmented, if we choose, with a Tricare supplement called Tricare for Life. This, from what we hear, is a really good plan, and we intend to do it. This morning’s seminar, for military retirees approaching age 65, will walk us through the application process.
What about the VA? Tricare for Life is a better option for us. As a retired officer with no significant disabilities, I’d have to pay proportionally more in co-pays for VA services than other VA patients, and quite a bit more than I’d have to pay under Tricare for Life.
For the past several years, our primary physicians have been military doctors assigned to the clinic at Davis-Monthan AFB here in Tucson. That ends when we go on Medicare and Tricare for Life, and we’ll have to find a civilian doctor. We’ll still be able to have our prescriptions filled on base, though, and that is a great thing. Now I understand why so many military retirees settle near large bases and why they get so upset whenever a new round of base closing negotiations begins.
A military career is rapidly becoming one of the last great careers, or at least one of the last careers to offer good retirement pensions and medical care. I suppose it won’t be long before Republican politicians turn on us the same way they turned on teachers, cops, firemen, and other public sector employees. They’ll have a hell of a fight on their hands when they do.
Update (a few hours later): Props to the Tricare and Pass & ID folks on base, who gave us an informative and useful briefing, and who issued Donna a new ID card in nothing flat. We also noted that the public area television in the waiting room at Pass & ID was set not to Fox but to MSNBC. That’s because of me, you know. I’m feeling good about the military today!