Issues in Designing a Prescription Drug Benefit for Medicare

Summary: Medicare offers broad insurance protection for many health needs of the nation's elderly & disabled residents, but it provides no coverage for the costs of most outpatient prescription drugs (PD). As spending for those PD has soared in recent years, adding a PD benefit to Medicare has become a top health issue for lawmakers. This study discusses an approach to estimating the costs of various designs for a Medicare PD... benefit. Describes the broad choices available to policymakers, some problems raised by particular design choices, & the implications of those choices for the cost of four specific proposals, which together cover a wide spectrum of approaches for delivering a Medicare PD benefit. Charts & tables. [read more]