James Houtsma

Tricare: Betrayal in the Philippines James Houtsma

The Tricare program in the Philippines has been a failure of epic proportion among the first 3 and most important of the following stakeholders: (1) Tricare beneficiaries; (2) Tricare healthcare providers; (3) American taxpayers; (4) Oversight of the Tricare program: U. S. Congress; (5) Administrator of the Tricare program: Defense Health Agency/TRICARE Management Activity (DHA/TMA); and, (6) Tricare contractor: International SOS (ISOS) in the Philippines. Putting it another way, the DHA/TMA and ISOS took an imperfect but partially working model in the Philippines, and made it progressively worse to the point where nothing works, unnecessarily spawning thousands of tragedies, where Tricare beneficiaries and providers are up in arms anytime the word Tricare is mentioned, and where DHA/TMA and ISOS are the only 2 parties congratulating each other on the dysfunctions and tragedies they facilitated, exacerbated and perpetrated.