Medicare's prescription coverage gap is getting noticeably smaller and easier to manage this year for millions of older and disabled people with high drug costs.
There is some good news for many Medicare recipients, present and future. According to new Medicare figures, the cost of falling into the “doughnut hole” is shrinking.
The “doughnut hole,” as many know all-too-well, is the treacherous territory you fall into when you have spent too much of your Medicare Part D benefits to continue receiving full benefits (but not so much of your own money to qualify for “catastrophic coverage”).
It’s an easy hole to fall into, especially if you have a special medication. With the new health law, however, pharmaceutical companies have begun offering a 50% discount on medications to beneficiaries in the gap, and that has meant a great deal of savings.
According to the figures, the average beneficiary who falls into the coverage gap already would have spent $1,504 this year on prescriptions. Yet, with the new law, that cost fell to $901, with each individual doing better or worse depending on which medicines they use.
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Reference: ABC News (November 27, 2011) “AP Newsbreak: Medicare’s Drug Coverage Gap Shrinks”