Tricare is great. Im on Medicare now, but annual premiums were like $350 per year. I also take advantage off free prescriptions and commissary privileges - saves a bundle.
In 2020 when my daughter was 6 they discovered an intestinal birth defect requiring emergency surgery and 7 days in the hospital, the bills came to over $80K. Thank God for Tricare and my out of pocket was about $1500.
However, she was born in a Thailand hospital by cesarian, I upgraded to 3 days in the hospital’s VIP private room, my total cost for delivery, doctor, and stay was 12,000 Baht, about $400. But I am thankful we were in the USA in 2020 as I’m not sure the Thai Hospital would have reacted correctly for her issue.
Factoids:
It is common to presume that someone with Alzheimer’s or some other reason for needing full-time nursing home care will wipe themselves out financially.
Average period of time for elderly in a nursing home is 14 months. That’s what you multiply the costs per month to determine when you are wiped out, or if you are wiped out.
Interesting approach to things like memory care and nursing home care is a guy who put together a little empire based on adult children living on one Coast with their parents in a nursing home on the other coast. His presentation is that you can make the trip to visit those parents as easily to Mexico as to New York from California. There are some excellent expat nursing homes in Mexico and because the costs are overall so low they’ll have a nurse to patient ratio far far above us nursing homes. The guy also has them in Thailand for even less money and even better care, and keeping in mind that the patient probably doesn’t know where they are anyway.