Medicare Part D needlessly expensive and complex

"Congress should revisit the Medicare Part D drug plan next year and recraft it in the public interest rather than insurers' interests," write the editors of the Scranton Times-Tribune in its November 19th edition.

Rather than allowing insurers to control costs by eliminating coverage, Congress instead should require Medicare to negotiate volume discounts with manufacturers.  Other federally subsidized programs, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, already negotiate such discounts and have achieved prices that range up to 50 percent lower than those paid through Medicare Part D.

The editorial criticizes Medicare Part D for creating a gap in coverage where enrollees become responsible for $3,000 worth of drug purchases.  About 15 percent of the people who enter this gap stop taking their meds.  According to the Times-Tribune, that helps insurers because by not spending their way through the gap, those individuals never resume Part D coverage.  This is "a bizarre and dangerous mechanism" that should be fixed by the next Congress.