Riverside Press-Enterprise Examines Enrollment in Medicare Drug Benefit
Some Medicare beneficiaries are "perplexed" by the new Medicare prescription drug benefit and California has "an especially large and vulnerable population" that could be affected by the confusion, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.
About one million of the state's 4.3 million Medicare beneficiaries are dually eligible for Medicare and Medi-Cal. Twenty-five percent of those beneficiaries live in nursing homes, 40% are cognitively impaired and 20% have limited English skills, making it difficult to educate or contact them, according to Jeanne Finberg, directing attorney for the National Senior Citizens Law Center in Oakland.
David Lipschutz of the Los Angeles office of California Health Advocates said the benefit will help reduce prescription drug costs for seniors but "the way it's constructed and presented is leading to mass confusion" (Schwartz, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 12/6).
Additional information on Medicare Part D is available online.