The U.S. Healthcare Bill and the U.S. Military Healthcare System

I’ve lived within the military healthcare system for 25 years, and it didn’t take me quite that long to trudge through the healthcare bill. With very few exceptions, this bill is just not that different from the healthcare system the U.S. military has had for a very long time. In all the bickering over this bill, I have yet to hear, "We don't want something better than what we've given our military," but instead I hear, “This is socialism!” 

I would ask those who cry foul, what the hell? I’m not suggesting that just because it’s good enough for your military it’s good enough for you, but hey, isn’t it? Where were all the cries of “Egads, socialism!” when the military’s healthcare system and Tricare were put into place? Ignorance of the entirety of this country’s healthcare system is no excuse.

C’mon now, you’ve watched for many years as our war wounded have come home into a healthcare system that, even though it works most of the time, is nothing short of a human rights violation when it doesn’t work. Have you cared? No – not until you found something legislated into your lap that is the handsome older brother of the system currently serving your military.

There are two significant differences between this bill and the military healthcare system/Tricare:

1) Measures have been put in place to eliminate or minimize the amount, duration and severity of ass-pounding the civilian insured and potentially insured would get from an insurer.

2) Civilian children can be covered by their parent's policy until age 26 whereas Tricare will not be made to do the same for military children. Tricare will continue to insure a child to age 21 who is not in college and to age 23 if the child is in college. This part of the bill specifically exempts Tricare and thus excludes all children of active duty military and children of retirees.

The differences notwithstanding, the military healthcare system/Tricare still beats the ever livin' crap out of some of the best insurance policies in the civilian market. For civilians it just got a whole lot better than if they’d just been given the same system the military has right now – and still there is moaning and groaning that does not, for the sake of consistency, include outcry over how the military was specifically excluded in the upgrade or the socialist nature of the military’s healthcare system.

If you can’t bring yourself to see the bright side of the sun the least you could do is stop standing in everyone else’s light.