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Medicare Drug Plans May Be More Limited in 2007
CMS considers limiting insurers to only two
plans per region
Feb. 27, 2006 - Despite the ardent defense by
President Bush of the Medicare drug program, even the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid is considering changes that may help eliminate some
of the confusion. The agency has sent a memo to drug plan sponsors
saying they are considering limiting the number of plans each insurer
can offer in 2007, according to a report by KaiserNet.org.
 Medicare | Number of Medicare Drug Plans
Insurers Can Offer Might Be Limited in 2007, CMS Says
CMS is considering limiting the number of plans that insurers can
offer under the Medicare prescription drug benefit next year, the agency
said in a memo to drug plan sponsors, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The memo, dated Feb. 21, says CMS might limit
insurers with Medicare drug plans to offering one "basic" benefit plan
and one "enhanced" benefit plan in each region.
For this year's coverage, insurers were allowed to
sponsor up to three plans per region. The letter also outlines
preliminary information about changes to the Medicare drug benefit for
next year, including a requirement that plans with 24-hour pharmacies in
their network also offer 24-hour phone lines for pharmacists.
In addition, the letter says, CMS is considering
altering effective dates of enrollment, so that beneficiaries who sign
up near the end of the month would not expect to begin coverage on the
first day of the following month. The letter asks insurers to respond by
March 1.
Comments
CMS spokesperson Gary Karr said, "Last year, we limited the number of
choices ... because we didn't think it was reasonable for beneficiaries
to have to walk through more."
He added, "There are people who think there ought
to be even fewer than that; that's one of the reasons to ask this." Karr
said, "It would be silly to suggest that we would not incorporate some
learning from this year's experience."
A spokesperson for
Humana said the insurer agrees "with the thrust of the memo" but
needs to review some of the details.
Aetna said it needed to review the letter, while
Cigna said it planned to respond by March 1 (Lueck, Wall Street
Journal, 2/25-2/26).
Broadcast Coverage
NPR's "Morning
Edition" on Monday reported on the Medicare prescription drug
benefit's progress by revisiting people who had been interviewed at the
launch of the benefit.
The segment includes comments from President Bush;
Jeanne Finberg, directing attorney at the
National Senior Citizens Law Center; HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt;
Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.); Sue Wolf Nelson, director of the
Family Health Care Pharmacy, part of a community health center in
Fargo, N.D., serving low-income and uninsured residents; Jude Walsh,
Maine's pharmacy director; and Medicare beneficiaries (Rovner, "Morning
Edition," NPR, 2/27).
 The
complete segment is available
online in RealPlayer.
"Reprinted with
permission from kaisernetwork.org (insert hyperlink to http://www.kaisernetwork.org).
You can view the entire
Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, and sign up
for email delivery at
www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser
Daily Health Policy Report is published for
kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family
Foundation. © 2006 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation.
All rights reserved.”
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