Studying the Military Health System and Tricare are major stepping stones in modernizing veterans' healthcare, five authors wrote in a July 26 Health Affairs blog post.
Outside of previous recommendations to promote telehealth and leverage private care delivery, the authors wrote Tricare's ability to let service members broadly pick between private and public options should be adopted by the Veterans Health Administration. While veterans technically have access to private care, it is only utilized when the public option is unable to service the member.
The post suggested VHA consider tiered subsidies modeled after Tricare Prime, creating an HMO that uses Veterans Affairs providers.
They also proposed "VA Select," which like Tricare Select, would provide a PPO network of VHA and private providers.
Ultimately, the authors called on lawmakers to create a VA supplement to Medicare, decreasing VHA financial strain while expanding coverage if the federal program becomes central to coverage.