Part D Plans are Raising Drug Costs as Soon as Seniors are Locked in for the Year.

According to a recent report, 95 percent of the Part D private insurance plans raised their costs for the five most widely prescribed drugs in the first month of 2007. This was right after beneficiaries were locked into the programs for the rest of the year. Twenty-one percent of the plans raised the costs by five percent or more.

The report is from Consumers Union, an independent, non-profit consumers organization. "The whole point of having Medicare drug insurance is to protect against the unexpected, and we're finding a lot of unexpected cost increases," said Bill Vaughan, senior policy analyst for the group. He added, "Each time drug costs go up under these plans, seniors are pushed that much closer to the brink of the doughnut hole coverage gap."

Consumers Union found that 28 of the insurance plans it tracked across the country increased their costs of the five most prescribed drugs in 2006. A Florida plan increased its costs for the year by nearly one-third or $795. Seventy-eight percent of the plans changed their costs for the five drugs more three or more times in 2006. Thirty percent of the plans changed their cost at least six times during the year. While the costs did, at times, go down, Part D beneficiaries obviously cannot rely on some of the very information they use choose a plan.

Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, supports a change in Part D to require Medicare to negotiate drug prices and offer a Medicare-administered drug plan in addition to the private companies. This would mean more consistency and lower drug prices for the beneficiaries.

They also recommend that CMS, the governmental agency that administers Medicare, publish the names of plans that frequently change the price of drugs. If a plan raises the drug costs by more than five percent, Consumers Union believes that enrollees should be allowed to switch to a new plan.

To read the full report go to www.consumersunion.org.

Created March 2, 2007