Low-Income Assistance Under the Medicare Drug Benefit December 12, 2009 Fact Sheet This fact sheet provides an overview of the Medicare drug benefit and the additional subsidies available to certain eligible low-income beneficiaries. Fact Sheet – December 2009 (.pdf)
Medicare Part D 2010 Data Spotlight: Benefit Design and Cost Sharing November 30, 2009 Report The Medicare Modernization Act established a defined standard drug benefit for Part D stand-alone Prescription Drug Plans (PDPs) and Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug (MA-PD) plans, while giving plans flexibility to offer alternative benefit designs. Only about one in 10 PDPs offer the standard benefit in 2010. Plan sponsors can offer…
Medicare Part D 2010 Data Spotlight: Premiums November 30, 2009 Report Medicare Part D helps cover the cost of outpatient prescription drugs for 27 million beneficiaries enrolled in private stand-alone prescription drug plans (PDPs) and Medicare Advantage prescription drug (MA-PD) plans. The majority of Part D enrollees pay a monthly premium for Medicare drug coverage. This data spotlight examines premiums for…
Medicare Part D 2010 Data Spotlight: A Comparison of PDPs Offering Basic and Enhanced Benefits November 30, 2009 Report This Part D Data Spotlight examines key differences between basic and enhanced Medicare stand-alone prescription drug plans (PDPs), including monthly premiums, cost sharing, and gap coverage. It also examines plan names to assess whether they convey meaningful differences between basic and enhanced PDPs. Companies that sponsor Medicare Part D prescription…
Snapshots: Wages & Benefits: A Long-Term View November 13, 2009 Issue Brief Recent polls show that a substantial portion of families worry about whether their incomes will keep pace with rising prices generally and whether they will have to pay more for health care or health insurance.1 This concern about the cost of health insurance may result in part from the rapid increases…
Medicare Part D 2010 Data Spotlight: The Coverage Gap October 30, 2009 Report This data spotlight examines the coverage gap, or “doughnut hole,” in Medicare stand-alone drug plans available in 2010. While in the gap in coverage, Part D enrollees (other than those receiving low-income subsidies) are required to pay 100 percent of total drug costs until they reach the catastrophic coverage level.…
Medicare Advantage 2010 Data Spotlight: Plan Availability and Premiums October 30, 2009 Issue Brief This data spotlight examines changes in the availability and premiums of private Medicare Advantage options for Medicare beneficiaries in 2010 as the annual open enrollment period begins. While the number of plans available in 2010 declined somewhat from 2009, the analysis finds that Medicare beneficiaries on average have 33 Medicare…
Medicare Part D Spotlight: Part D Plan Availability in 2010 and Key Changes Since 2006 October 30, 2009 Issue Brief This Medicare Part D data spotlight examines the stand-alone Medicare drug plan options that will be available to beneficiaries in 2010, including the number of available plans, premiums for those plans, and benefit designs. About two-thirds of the nearly 27 million Medicare beneficiaries who are enrolled in Part D plans get…
Explaining Health Care Reform: What is Comparative Effectiveness Research? September 29, 2009 Issue Brief The brief examines current funding for comparative effectiveness research, the provisions included in the current health reform legislation, and issues related to which treatments that might be studied, whether and how to weigh costs of care, and how such findings will be used and shared with health-care practitioners and the…
The Crunch Continues: Medicaid Spending, Coverage and Policy in the Midst of a Recession September 2, 2009 Event This annual 50-state survey finds that number of people on Medicaid and state spending on the program are climbing sharply as a result of the recession, straining state budgets and pressuring officials to curb costs despite increased financial help from the federal government through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act…