Congressman Blunt Reviews Progress of New Medicare Drug Benefit

Congressman Blunt Reviews Progress of New Medicare Drug Benefit

1.8.2006

Springfield, Missouri -- On the sixth day of operations under Medicare's new drug benefit plan, Southwest Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt heard encouraging news along with reports of some glitches that have kept a few seniors from receiving their prescription drugs. Many pharmacists estimate that up to 75% of the Medicare prescriptions are going through normally.

"For the first time, millions of seniors are saving money and getting help from Medicare in paying for the medicines they need to improve the quality of their lives and prevent more serious illnesses," Blunt said.

"As you would expect there are problems with the four-day-old program that now has more than 21-million beneficiaries enrolled,"Blunt said. Dorothy Knowles with the Southwest Missouri Office on Aging and Pharmacist Lynn Morris of Ozark have identified three general problems: 1) Co-payments are larger than expected on some drugs; 2) enrollments are not showing up in the Medicare or insurance systems; 3) some Medicare/Medicaid eligible beneficiaries, who were pre-enrolled, have no paperwork identifying their company of coverage.

"Today I have talked to the administrator of Medicare about these problems and I will continue to monitor their progress on correcting them," Congressman Blunt said. "Medicare is making a good faith effort to correct them as quickly as possible on a case-by-case basis." In some cases, insurance companies are promising reimbursements to seniors who are charged incorrect co-payments. Medicare continues to monitor and complete enrollments with the insurance companies that offer more than 50 plans in the Ozarks.

"This is not unusual or a surprise in a program that will serve millions of seniors," Blunt said. "A million seniors signed up for stand alone-plans in just 28 days. Remember," he said, "when Medicare started in 1965 there were reports of confusion, patients and doctors didn't understand the new program and seniors were complaining that hey had not received their new Medicare cards. Sounds familiar. I am confident the system will work things out and provide the services promised."

http://www.blunt.house.gov/Read.aspx?ID=571