Medicare’s Prescription Drug Program

Medicare’s 2006 launch of a prescription drug benefit filled a fundamental need for people with Medicare. An essential part of health care in the 21st Century is the administration of appropriate prescription medicine, and the Medicare Prescription Drug Program, known as Part D, made great progress in making prescription drugs affordable to people with Medicare.

But now, more needs to be done.

• For many people, it is too difficult to understand the benefits of enrolling in Part D and too difficult to choose the plan most likely to work best.
• In addition, people with low incomes may have a difficult time affording the out of pocket costs – premiums and copayments – that are required by Part D.
• Even more difficult for limited income people is the expense of paying the cost of medications, sometimes in its entirety, during the Part D coverage gap.

Our positions:

• Universal American supports the Obama Administration bringing together a task force of Part D sponsors and consumer counseling experts to simplify Part D education materials and to streamline the government’s website, www.medicare.gov, to ease consumer enrollment in a suitable prescription drug plan.
• As long as there is a coverage gap in prescription drug coverage, Congress should ease the burden for people with low incomes to enroll in the Extra Help Program that covers most out-of-pocket costs. Universal American supports elimination of the asset test for the Low Income Subsidy. People with low incomes, but modest savings, should not be punished for their savings. Already, a handful of states have eliminated this asset test as a requirement for Extra Help. This should be a federal standard.
• Universal American also believes that Congress should synchronize the application process and eligibility criteria for the Low Income Subsidy and Medicare Savings Programs – eliminating unnecessary confusion and paperwork that results in many needy and eligible people failing to get the benefits which can help keep them healthy.

View the pending healthcare reform legislation.