Medicare Drug Card Program Set to Begin

[CShine]

WASHINGTON - Every low-income Medicare beneficiary who qualifies should sign up for a Medicare-approved drug discount card, which provides $600 in government aid to buy prescription medicines. For everyone else, the decision to buy a discount card — and which one — is not so simple.

Beginning Thursday, the Medicare Web site will provide drug price comparisons and tell Medicare recipients where they can use the various cards. The same information will be available from operators at 1-800-MEDICARE.

Enrollment begins May 3, and the cards can be used starting in June.

The Bush administration launched its second multimillion-dollar round of Medicare advertising Monday, having been stung by criticism that its first installment was political and not particularly informative. The Department of Health and Human Services refused to make the ad materials available.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&ncid=751&e=10&u=/ap/20040427/ap_on_he_me/medicare_drug_card

[Snellius]

1. Also: White House Spends $18M on Medicare Ad

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is spending $18 million on a new round of taxpayer-funded television advertising to promote the Medicare discount drug card, the Medicare administrator said Tuesday.

A Democratic senator criticized the ad as deceptive.
...

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said the administration put important information that described the limits of the drug card in small print.

``You need a microscope to read the fine print that appears for a few seconds that reveals that you must pay an enrollment fee and that `exclusions apply,''' Lautenberg said. ``The major `exclusion' could be the drug you need; the card may not offer any discount for many medications.''

In addition, the ad text that Medicare posted on its Web site omits the language about exclusions. Medicare officials could not immediately explain the discrepancy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4028182,00.html