Voices of Beneficiaries: Medicare Part D Insights and Observations One Year Later

This report describes the views and experiences of 35 Medicare beneficiaries under the new drug benefit in advance of the 2007 open enrollment period. The report finds that drug plan enrollees generally say that they are satisfied with their drug coverage and have not encountered major difficulties using their plan. At the same time, many of them don't fully understand how their plan works even after almost a year of experience with this new benefit.

The report is the third from a year-long series of one-on-one structured interviews with a diverse group of Medicare beneficiaries in four cities: Baltimore, Miami, Sacramento, and Lincoln, Nebraska. The Kaiser Family Foundation commissioned Lake Research Partners and American Viewpoint to conduct these interviews.

The first report, “Profiles of Medicare Beneficiaries With Medicaid Drug Coverage Prior to the Medicare Drug Benefit,” profiled four people who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid to provide greater insights into their circumstances as the new Medicare drug benefit went into effect. The second report, “Voices of Beneficiaries: Early Experiences with the Medicare Drug Benefit,” addressed the first months of Part D coverage in 2006.

Report (.pdf)