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Medicare Drug Program Opens Tuesday to Uninformed,
Confused Seniors
Don't understand the benefit, don't know if they will
enroll, are wary of the large number of choices
Nov. 11, 2005 - With the new Medicare drug
benefit’s open enrollment period set to begin on Tuesday, Nov. 15, many
seniors remain uncertain about how the law will affect them and unsure
about whether they will enroll, says a new poll. It did find, however,
that the more senior citizens new about the program, the more likely
they are to feel favorably about it.
The results highlight the critical importance of
ongoing education efforts to successful implementation of the new
program next year, said the news release on the survey by the Kaiser
Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.
When asked how well they understand the drug
benefit, more than six in 10 seniors (61%) say “not too well” or “not at
all,” while more than one in three seniors (35%) say “very” or
“somewhat” well. When asked whether the Medicare drug benefit would help
them personally, more seniors say it would not (49%) than say it would
(39%).
Overall, more than four in 10 seniors (43%) report
they do not yet know if they will enroll in a Medicare drug plan for
2006; 37% say they do not plan to enroll; and one in five (20%) say they
plan to enroll. Seniors without any drug coverage are most likely to say
that they plan to enroll (28%, compared with 15% for those with existing
drug coverage).
Most seniors substantially underestimate the number
of drug plan choices that they will have, with just 5% correctly
identifying that they will have more than 20 options for receiving their
drug coverage. When informed that “the government has announced that
most people on Medicare will have at least 40 different drug plans to
choose from,” almost three in four (73%) say that having many plans
“makes it confusing and difficult to pick the best plan,” while 22% say
it is “helpful and provides an opportunity to choose the best plan.”
“In the next six months, the question is whether
seniors stay on the sidelines or enroll in drug plans in large numbers.
In the long run the bigger question is whether seniors believe they are
getting enough help with their drug costs from the plans they are in,”
Foundation President Drew E. Altman, Ph.D., said.
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Former Senator John Breaux Says Seniors Will
Like It
"The Kaiser survey underscores an important
point that the Medicare Rx Network is working hard to address:
Medicare beneficiaries need to be educated about the new
prescription benefit,” said former Senator John Breaux. Breaux
chaired the Special Senate Committee on Aging and now chairs the
Medicare Rx Education Network.
"People on Medicare will become more
familiar with the program and comfortable with the options as
they review the details of the plans,” added Breaux.
“There is a lot of information available and
places to go to locally for help with one-on-one counseling.
Thousands of education and outreach events will take place
nationwide in the coming weeks. With personalized help, people
in Medicare will get educated, feel reassured and confidently
make informed decisions.
"No one can be expected to sign up for
something they don't understand. I am confident that as Medicare
beneficiaries learn more about the details of the plans, they
will understand the program and sign up for this new benefit."
To visit the Website for Medicare Rx Network
- click here. |
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The nationally representative survey - the ninth in
a series tracking the views of people with Medicare - finds that seniors
are about split in their overall views of the drug benefit (37% have an
unfavorable view, 31% favorable, and 31% don’t know). Seniors who say
they understand the benefit well are far more likely to report favorable
views (47% favorable), compared with 21% favorable among those who say
they do not understand it well.
While three in four seniors (77%) say that the drug
benefit will help people with low incomes, many of those who might
qualify for additional low-income assistance do not realize it. Among
the group of seniors most likely to be eligible (those who earn less
than $15,000 annually), half (50%) do not know that they are likely to
be eligible for additional financial help.
Among seniors who plan to enroll, 35% say that how
much they would pay out of pocket for each prescription is most
important to their decision about choosing a plan, compared with 19% who
say “which drugs the plans cover” and 16% who say “how much the plan
charges for monthly premiums.” One in five (20%) say that all those
factors are important, and the others did not know.
“Seniors are saying that they care more about how
much they will pay out of pocket for each prescription drug than they do
about premiums and formularies,” said Robert J. Blendon, Sc.D.,
Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. “That
could influence their decisions as they choose a drug plan.”
 The
survey shows varying degrees of knowledge among seniors related to key
elements of the new benefit. For example, nearly two in three seniors
(64%) say correctly that, in general, seniors must sign up to get
coverage, but one in 10 (10%) incorrectly say coverage would begin
automatically and one in four (25%) say they don’t know. In addition,
more than four in 10 seniors either say that they don’t know if there
are financial penalties for late enrollment (27%) or say incorrectly
that there are no such penalties (19%).
In making decisions about the drug benefit, seniors
most often say that they “very likely” would turn to the Medicare
program (33%) or their personal doctor (32%) for help. Smaller shares
say that they are “very likely” to seek help from their pharmacist
(25%), Social Security (24%), friends and family members (20%), or a
seniors’ group or community organization (16%).
More than half of all seniors say that their
pharmacists (55%) and doctors (53%) are “very” or “somewhat” likely to
spend time to help them choose a drug plan. Three in four (75%) say that
they expect their pharmacists to be “very” or “somewhat” knowledgeable
about their drug plan choices, while nearly two thirds (65%) say the
same about their physicians.
“Many seniors expect to lean heavily on their
doctors and pharmacists to help guide them through their many options,”
said Kaiser Family Foundation Vice President Mollyann Brodie, Ph.D., the
director of the Foundation’s Public Opinion and Media Research. “If this
proves unrealistic, their frustration could create an implementation
challenge.”
The survey shows that seniors increasingly are
receiving information or hearing about the Medicare drug benefit. About
three in four seniors (74%) say that they have received information
about the new Medicare drug benefit, and of those, six in 10 (60%) say
that they read through it closely. Nearly half (47%) say they had
received information from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services,
which runs the benefit up from about one in four (26%) who said so in
August.
More than four in 10 seniors (45%) say they have
seen or heard advertisements about the drug benefit on television or
radio. Of those, more than half (51%) say that the ads were primarily
“trying to educate seniors about the new drug benefit generally,” while
more than a third (37%) say the ads were mainly “trying to get seniors
to sign up for a specific drug plan.”
The survey also finds that half of seniors (50%)
have heard of 1-800-MEDICARE and slightly more than a third (35%) have
heard of
www.medicare.gov. The telephone number and Web site are maintained
by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to help beneficiaries
understand the program and the drug benefit in particular. In addition,
about three in four seniors (76%) say that they have never gone online
to use the Internet. Overall, 8% of seniors say that they have called
1-800-MEDICARE for assistance, and 6% say they have visited the website.
The survey results are
available online.
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