TRICARE Prime against Select

Both plans cover the same things. The scope of covered services is identical in statute, so this is not a comparison of what you get — it is a comparison of what you pay, how you reach care, and where the risk sits when you have a bad year.

Select looks cheaper, and often is not. The enrollment fee is half Prime's, which is where most people stop reading. But a group A retiree on Select pays for every day of a hospital stay, plus a share of every surgeon and anaesthetist bill, against a catastrophic cap $1,381 higher — while Prime charges one flat amount for the whole admission. The premium saving is real and it is small. The difference in a bad year is thousands.

Your situation

Cost group

Coverage

The group is set by the sponsor's initial entry into uniformed service — not by your retirement date, and not by the dependent's own dates.

Enter the sponsor's initial entry into uniformed service. TRICARE retiree costs are keyed on that date — before 1 January 2018 is group A, on or after is group B — and the Select enrollment fee differs between them by more than a factor of three. Assuming a group here would produce a confident number that is wrong for roughly half of readers.

Things the cost model cannot price

Dental and vision are in neither plan. Retirees lose the active-duty dental benefit on retirement day and buy cover separately through FEDVIP, in its own open season in November and December. Budget it as an unavoidable line, not an optional one.
The pharmacy benefit is identical. It is not a lever in this decision. A military pharmacy fills generic and brand formulary drugs at no cost under either plan, which is worth more than the Prime/Select gap to anyone who lives near one.
Whether a military facility has capacity for you. Prime is much stronger with a facility-based primary care manager and much weaker without one. That is a local question with a local answer, and it changes.
Bypassing a Prime referral is expensive. The point-of-service option carries its own deductible and a 50% cost-share that does not count toward the catastrophic cap. If you will not use referrals, Prime's cap protection is not protection.
This decision is reversible. It is revisited every open season and at any qualifying life event, and family members may enroll in different plans. That lowers the cost of choosing wrong more than any figure on this page.
It all ends at 65. Both plans stop and you move to TRICARE For Life, which requires Medicare Part A and Part B. Everything here governs a bounded window.

Rates are held for calendar year 2026 and were transcribed from a secondary source citing the Defense Health Agency. Confirm every figure at https://www.tricare.mil/Costs before you act on it. Estimates only — not financial, legal, tax or medical advice.