While you are employed, you may have access to a drug benefit program. This is probably the most valuable benefit you will ever have, considering the high cost of prescription medication in the United States today. But once you retire the story changes. Few retired Americans have access to a drug plan, either because the plan is not available once you are no longer employed, or the cost of maintaining it is out of reach. One option you have is to enroll in the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Part D.

The government launched this initiative to respond to the escalating cost of medications. Because seniors as a group tend to use more medication than most others, it was thought to be a way to give seniors access to lower cost drugs. But, let's look more closely at some of the problems associated with Plan D.

Basically, as a senior you have been encouraged to purchase coverage in the Medicare plan. When launched, the government was hoping that a large majority of seniors would opt to join. They have found that that hasn't been the case. Unfortunately, this has led to a new problem. Because of limited enrollment, the cost of premiums is already relatively high and is projected to continue to keep rising. Not too comforting for a senior on a fixed income.

But even that probably wouldn't deter seniors from enrolling. At least then they wouldn't have to worry about paying for their medication and could budget for the premium cost. Well, that's not exactly how it works.

In addition to premiums, members of the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan are also faced with co-pays. So while Medicare covers a lot of the cost, members must pick up the rest. On an expensive drug, this can amount to as much as $90. per prescription.

Drug prices through the plan rose about 9% on the fifteen drugs most prescribed to seniors. And this increase occurred in a single year. Price increases are expected to continue annually, although hopefully not to this degree. Now you may think this is not a real problem for the individual senior. But it does affect them in several ways.

For one thing, if Medicare is forced to pay more for prescription medication, they will have to pass these increases on to members in the form of premium increases, in order to maintain the viability of the program.

A second concern is that as costs increase, so does the amount paid out as a co-pay by individual plan members.

But probably the biggest reason for apprehension is related to the gap in coverage that occurs after a senior spends about $2400. on their prescriptions. This gap is reached much more quickly with drug prices on the rise.

In Part 2 of this article, we'll look more closely at the gap in coverage that is part of the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Part D and how this gap is affecting seniors.



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