Essay - Healthcare Medicare Part D Medicare Began Offering Outpatient Prescription Drug...

Healthcare

***** Part D

Medicare began offering outpatient prescription drug benefits under their Medicare part ***** program in 2006. All ***** beneficiaries are eligible for this program and as of January 2007 nearly 24 million people had enrolled ***** some form of the program. Finding ways to control and pay for ***** costs is an ever alarming problem for both Medicare and consumers alike. Medicare Part D uses complex and high levels ***** cost sharing to help defray the high drug costs that face seniors today (Hsu, Fung, Price, Huang, Br*****, PharmD, Fireman, and Newhouse, 2008).

Medicare prescription drug coverage was introduced to help people on Medicare with the cost of their prescriptions. Anyone ***** Medicare ***** eligible to enroll in a prescription drug pl*****n under ***** D. Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage is private insurance with government funding and mandated minimum benefit requirements. The standard Medicare drug benefit offers insurance that will ***** some drug expenses while protecting consumers against very high *****. The federal government is *****ing to cover the cost of the ***** prescription drug benefit but private companies are administering these benefits. ***** people ***** Medicare are eligible for Part D *****, regardless of medical history or income (Hsu, Fung, Price, et al., *****). This Medic***** drug benefit is completely voluntary and people may choose whether to ***** in it or not. F***** those who didn't have any previous *****age th***** ***** affords *****em with the opportunity to get help with the ris*****g costs of their medication. For many people this program replaces coverage that they had ***** an HMO, Medigap or Medicaid (Lichtenberg and Sun, 2007).

The coverage of ***** *****s by Medicare was designed to reduce the financial burden of medicines taken by ***** elderly. It had been found that ***** people were cutting back on life saving ***** or not refilling prescriptions in an effort to save money (Study examines the impact of Medicare Part D on drug adherence among the elderly, 2008).

***** goal is to lower the patients out of pocket costs so that *****s become more affordable ***** they are more likely to use them.

Although the Medicare prescription drug program has provided access ***** medications for seniors at a lower cost to ***** ***** th***** was originally expected and has lo*****d the out of pocket ***** ***** ***** consumers, there is talk about needing ***** overhaul the program. Critics contend ***** the government should be able to negotiate lower costs for ***** drugs than private insurances can. It is also felt that ***** entire ***** is too confusing for the elderly ***** and needs to be made ***** *****standable (Wechsler, 2008). All of ***** proposed changes come with Medicare still trying to uphold ***** objectives of providing affordable prescription drugs to seniors.

***** is believed ***** even with *****se proposed changes taking place there ***** still a need for greater education about the program as a whole. It is hoped that ***** increased education that consumers will be more informed