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Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

I have some hockey referee buddies who have very mixed reviews for the Canadian healthcare system. One of them has a kid who has a pretty rare genetic disorder. They regularly travel to Mayo in Minnesota on the Canadian Government's healthcare dime to get the care he needs. I also know one guy who had a pretty bad on ice injury. The treatment plan took a longer time than it would here because of the availability of specialized care.
Other countries with "universal healthcare" often utilize what we call the HMO system, aka Tricare Prime.

HMO plans are extremely unpopular despite being 50-67% the cost of PPO plans due to the red tape and wait times for getting specialist care.

Access to specialty care is an issue in the US as well if you live far from an urban center. Side effect of a fee for service system is that it's more lucrative to practice medicine in densely populated areas.
 
Our healthcare system is completely bonkers. I am not sure what I’ll do when I’m old- after watching my parents and grandparents try to navigate things, moving to another country has crossed my mind.
That would be the worst time to opt out. The elderly are the largest beneficiaries of the pyramid scheme and no country is going to beat the specialty care you'd eventually need.

Moving to another country as you turn 66 would be like abandoning your TSP after contributing all your life.
 
Are you referring to Tricare, VA, or Medicare?

The going reputation for Medicare among providers is that although it pays less, it's the easiest insurance to deal with for approvals. The government almost never challenges claims.

Tricare is supposedly the worst of both worlds, which is why almost no one takes it. And there isn't the largest cohort of healthcare consumers on it like Medicare.

Private insurance battles are slowly going away as they buy up providers and expand to regional networks. Private practices are an endangered species. The same people are getting a cut of the procedure and insurance payout, so the more the doc runs up the bill, the richer the C-suite gets. This is removing almost all cost reduction pressure from healthcare.

If you go to an UC clinic or ER and ask for the bottom line cash price to get seen for an acute illness, they wouldn't be able to tell you. That's a huge problem. That fear among the public is driving healthcare policy.
I have used both private and Tricare.

The few issues I have had with Tricare is when they changed who administered Tricare in the west region, that change over was an absolute mess and then my back issue. If I was to exclude those 2 issues I have been very happy with Tricare. My civilian health insurance which I have had 2 different ones have been a lot of delay where it seems they hope you will just give up.

I haven't dealt with VA healthcare but I have visited every VA Hospital in my state and talked to each director due to my past role with the VFW, in general the patients we talked to seemed happy with their care, most of the care is in house to minimize delays, there are shortcomings with community care and they are working on that. The one VA Hospital I visited that is the exception is Walla Walla, they basically triage and send about 90% of their patients out into the community.
 
Lived in Australia for a few years.
I still think their system is far better than than ours.

Primary care lead times were a few days, so people get to issues much earlier than here.

When I saw the bills. Imaging tests like MRIs cost about a tenth what they do here. And the lead times were again, within a few days, not like a month plus which seems to be the norm I’ve heard/seen in multiple CONUS states.

Orthopedic surgery and other specialist wait times were within a week for initial consult.

They all pay for their Medicare through taxes, which is really just basic, preventative, and ER care. But most people have employer heath insurance that will pick up stuff their Medicare for all won’t like orthopedics.
I wouldn't mind living in Australia, except for the spiders, I really hate spiders.
 
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