Does the Delta supplement insurance cover dependent children up to age 26? TriCare does not cover children after age 23. The TriCare for youth plan is very cost prohibitive.

If you use the Delta sup, you should at least check out the MOAA supp (you don't even have to join moaa to use it) but their supp insurance was cheaper and they have access to tricares claims process so you don't have to file any claims, they automatically see what Tricare paid and pay you the copay back or pay the doc directly.

Have you gone through TAP? My family was on Tricare Standard the whole time I was in, civilian doctors, no PCMs. Cost went up a bit when I retired but man. I pay nothing upfront, my max out of pocket for the family is 3k per year. As others have said, you can purchase supplements that cover some of the expenses. I'll have to do the math after a couple years but so far I think we're better off without the supplement. While you can't use the HSA's Delta does have an FSA so you can throw pre tax dollars up to $2550 (I think) a year that you can use for all medical expenses--prescriptions, co-pays, glasses, etc. There is some PITA factor in reimbursement, but it isn't bad. Basically scan receipt, upload, and check bank account 48 hours later.

Example of the wonder of Standard, my knee hurt. I called an ortho, made an appt. Sent me for an MRI I got the next business day, saw ortho two days later, surgery two weeks after. No PCMs, no referrals. Cost, higher than Tricare prime, totally worth it to me.

If you're retiring:
Prime--~600 bucks a year, max out of pocket for copays per year is 1k. Cost per year is roughly $1600 worst case.


Standard--$0 upfront, much more choice of providers (when I ask if they take Tricare first question is "which type?"), higher copays and max out of pocket 3k per year. Cost per year is $3k worst case. Can buy supplements that will reduce max out of pocket to pretty close to Prime worst case.

Sitting through this part of TAP I couldn't figure out why anyone would choose Prime. Which was academic question for me as my wife was pretty adamant Prime wasn't happening.

To your questions, you can get good coverage through Tricare, and it costs significantly less than Delta. There can be some difficulty finding providers that take Tricare, for us it hasn't been a big problem. No idea how that compares to UHC.

Reality is Congress/Pentagon is relentlessly going after Retiree health care, and I don't expect to have it for next couple decades. But right now it's good.

I haven't found anyone who had the option of retiree Tricare that took UHC instead. Nor have I found a res who didn't do TRS. My study has not been scientific, but....

I'm retired, have TriCare Prime, and a civilian doctor. So far it has been really good.

Hopefully some more invites go out today, for all the folks who have gone somewhere else and did not respond to the Wed invites for March 7th class!

As a delta employee we can only submit one internal rec on said individual per year to the hiring board. There is no restriction on how many individuals you can internally recommend though. If you have four internals they should all be sending internal recs.

Letters of rec attached to your profile are used more for interview team to review. OC seemed to allude that they don't carry much weight to get an interview. They just want current delta pilots to vouch for good pilots. He said, "if a delta pilot says they are good that's all we want to know". Their app review and score will determine whether they make the cut to interview. The key is getting scored which right now is mostly driven by internal company recs.

Or you could just save the receipts and claim it on your income tax at the end of the year for a refund. Easier than dealing with the FSA IMO. Might be some difference to the bottom line, but probably at the noise level when it comes to actual savings.

No new 3/7 class invites yet?

^^^^^ This ^^^^^

I retired from the Navy in 2006, took Tricare Standard and bought a supplement from MOAA. Wife and 2 teenagers. Relatively healthy, no special problems just routine stuff, until the wife had an ER visit and a week in the hospital 4 years ago. I pay $0 for standard and about $75/mo for MOAA which comes directly from the retired pay as an allotment. The MOAA premium will adjust down when the last kid drops off next year.

I have yet to have to fill out a claim form in 10 years (MOAA does it all).

My out of pocket, after premiums is less than $400 in 10 years. I pray that the trend continues.

If you have a family member with a chronic condition or special needs, your situation may call for a different option. But the lack of a PCM is worth the extra cost exposure of standard to me. Standard will actually pay better than prime, if you are an in-patient, and my personal experience bears that out.

YMMV


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I would think more invites for the March 7th class would go out today. If you get an invite please PM with the last four of your soc sec #. I'll try and create a mock bid list of where you stand in class so you can plan accordingly. I only have three PM's right now but need way more to make this work.

Thanks,