Few seniors understand changes to Medicare

[Judi Lynn]

Feb. 26, 2004, 10:05PM

Few seniors understand changes to Medicare
By VICKI KEMPER
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON -- Only a fraction of the nation's seniors understand the new Medicare prescription drug law, and the more they learn about it, the less they like it, according to a survey released Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The complex law, which also gives private insurance companies billions of dollars to lure beneficiaries away from fee-for-service Medicare and into managed care, will require more than 40 million people who are elderly or disabled to make difficult choices about their health care.

The survey results suggest seniors may be ill prepared to make informed decisions, starting with whether to use a Medicare-endorsed drug discount card as of June 1 designed to provide stopgap relief from high drug costs. The full prescription drug benefit takes effect in 2006.

"Seniors are really confused, and there's a lot of work to do between now and implementation," said Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health policy research institute. "If seniors are going to make the best of this law, they're going to need a lot of help."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2422780

[papau]

1. The "study" ignored the implications of the changes - the cherry

picking and subsidied Ins plans causing only very sick to stay in Medicare causing out of pocket cost to those still in to rise, killing gov based Medicare

at which point, Ins based health for the aged gos up in price as gov subsidy is removed!

But that was not in survey!

:-(

[NC_Nurse]

2. And how many

seniors are going to get that help?
Not many, you can be sure.
Once again, the corporate interests win.:puke:

[izzie]

3. I am going to study it after I get the IRS rules down.

So????