New Medicare Drug Plan: Convenient or Confusing?
By Mandy Kozar
WASHINGTON, Oct. 13-Elderly citizens may find themselves overwhelmed with information when they go to sign up for a prescription drug plan through the Medicare’s prescription Drug Benefit plan beginning this winter, experts warned.
The new program, approved in 2003, allows Medicare to pay for private coverage plans provided by a number of different healthcare companies, a choice that some critics say makes the new program daunting to its beneficiaries.
“What makes it very confusing is the design of the program,” said Patricia Nemore, senior policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy. “It is necessary, because of the design of the program, to have enormous amounts of information which is highly variable and not necessarily reliable,” she added.
Starting on Nov. 15, people will be able to sign up for one of the drug plans available in their region. In Connecticut alone, there are 60 different plans from which to choose.
Many Democratic senators have criticized the GOP-backed plan, claiming that not only is it confusing, but it benefits big insurance companies and big drug companies instead of the elderly and disabled.
Last week Sen. Joseph Lieberman wrote to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services voicing his concerns about the efficiency of the program.
“[T]he complexities of the program are increasingly making it unwieldy,” Lieberman wrote.
Opposition was further fueled by an error printed in the Medicare handbook distributed last week. The handbook erroneously stated that if beneficiaries have incomes low enough to qualify for an extra subsidy, all drug plans are available to them with no monthly premium.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has since corrected the error in their online version of the handbook, but will not be sending a letter to everyone who received the handbook in the mail, according to a spokesman.
The mistake illustrates the difficulty with reliably providing such a huge quantity of information, Nemore said.
However, not everyone feels that the program is flawed.
According to Alice Deak, the director of information services for the Southwestern Connecticut Agency on Aging, there are enough sources of information to help beneficiaries understand the program.
“There is a lot of information and, yes, it can be overwhelming to any of us including the seniors,” Deak said. “But there is a vehicle for breaking that information down and providing it to seniors in the community so that it doesn’t overwhelm them and they are able to consider their best option under the benefit.”
The Agency on Aging is one of the organizations where those enrolled in Medicare can go to get help. Additionally, information is provided at the Medicare.gov Web site and a 1-800-medicare helpline.
“We’re making all the information available so that seniors and people with disabilities will be able to make informed and confident decisions in selecting a plan,” said Peter Ashkenaz, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
