Health Insurance Daily

Giving Part D A Spin

"There are many, many pieces of mythology going around about this bill," Nona Bear said last week as she opened a training session on Medicare's new prescription drug program. "The most pernicious is that this is only for low-income seniors."

In fact, the voluntary program, also known as Medicare Part D, is open to more than 40 million people of all economic levels, most of them age 65 and older.

Enrollment starts Nov. 15, and benefits begin in January of 2006.

In simplest terms, Part D is an insurance program that protects enrollees from catastrophically high drug bills. It's also a discount program for the routine prescriptions that can gradually drain the bank accounts even of people who are neither especially sick nor especially poor.

For more on this article published by the Washington Post, click on Medicare Part D.

posted by Mike @ 9:25 AM