"Donut Hole" Checks on the Way to Medicare Recipients

Press Release

Thousands of seniors in Western Pennsylvania will soon receive $250 checks to help them with prescription drug prices, as part of the recent health care reform passed by Congress. Roughly 189,000 Medicare beneficiaries in Pennsylvania will receive a $250 check.

"Prescription drug costs are a big burden for seniors," Rep. Dahlkemper said. "The price tag for prescription drugs can run thousands of dollars a year. This check is a down payment on reducing prescription drug costs for seniors and eventually closing the donut hole altogether."

The first $250 checks are being mailed June 10 to Medicare beneficiaries who entered the Medicare Part D "donut hole," also known as the coverage gap, in the first quarter of 2010. The donut hole is the period in the prescription drug benefit in which the beneficiary pays 100 percent of the cost of their drugs until they hit the catastrophic coverage.

Medicare recipients do not have to do anything to get the check--once their drug costs for the year hit $2,830, the checks will be issued automatically. But Rep. Dahlkemper warned seniors to be on the lookout for fraud.

"Unfortunately, scam artists are going to try to exploit these checks to make a quick buck at seniors' expense," Rep. Dahlkemper said. "They call seniors and tell them they need to give out personal information like Social Security numbers and bank accounts to get the checks. That's completely false and if you get a call like that you should hang up and call the Attorney General's office."

Rep. Dahlkemper said the $250 checks are just the first step in reducing prescription drug prices under health care reform. Next year, seniors in the doughnut hole will get a 50 percent discount on name-brand prescription drugs and a 75 percent discount on generics. The average Pennsylvania senior will save $700 next year on prescription drugs because of health care reform.

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