A long time ago, the retirees were requesting a dental care program. It seems that when the active duty ceased, so did military dental insurance ended after active duty. My husband had been disabled retired @6 years when the retiree dental program came out. This came just in time for me. I was having major dental problems due to numerous autoimmune disease. I gazed over and was slightly upset. With the premiums you’d pay and the co-pay you would be responsible for, it just looked like a big olé’ ripoff I got out the calculator and ran some numbers. My suspicions were confirmed. It WAS a ripoff. I determined that it would be A LOT cheaper just to pay out of pocket if all you needed was a cleaning/cavity filled. If you needed just about everything done(like I did) it would have been about even. Yes, you pay for an insurance policy and then have to file a claim. If they decide to pay that claim, you then end up saving absolutely nothing. If they don’t pay the claim, you have to fight them or just lose big time. Here’s the deal. Just about every doctor/dentist will give you some kind of discount if you don’t have insurance. Just about any doctor/dentist will give you a discount if you pay in cash. They love cash. No collections for bounced checks/missed payments. What happened is that the government got a bunch of actuaries(fancy word for bean counters) to sit and figure out how they could do a dental program that would not cost them one damn cent. A plan that would be funded entirely by the retiree. If the government paid anything into this plan, its just another example of their wasteful spending(at our expense of course). Somebody(or group) is obviously getting a kickback from the insurance company. Shame on them. Most retirees are up there in age, and they are counting on them not taking time to check this out. Why should you need to? Don’t we ‘take care of our own’? In this case, its more like ‘taking advantage of our own’.
