Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Medicare RX: I hate to say I told you so....
The AP writes, "It's been a long wait for Medicare beneficiaries, but about two years after Congress approved a new prescription drug benefit, senior citizens and the disabled finally get to enroll, beginning Tuesday." Seniors, however, are not overjoyed about their new options. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health found that "most older Americans do not understand Medicare's new prescription drug benefit and only one in five of them intend to sign up for the plan." A primary concern of most seniors is determining whether the prescription drug plan will save them any money, and trying to determine that has been very difficult. The government set up a "Prescription Drug Plan Finder" on its Medicare website to ostensibly help seniors pick their coverage plan, but due to the complexity of the plan itself, seniors have encountered difficulty understanding the plan's formulary. Another concern for 6.3 million impoverished older and disabled Americans who are dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid is that they could find their eligibility cut off. "Eight advocacy groups from Maine to California" are filing suit to protect this vulnerable class of seniors. (And this doesn't even mention the corruption behind it all...)
