highline56 op ed

Complicated? Sure, if you are speaking to a room of 100 people, trying to cover all the possible variables. But you only have one situation. Yours. So it is time to apply the process of elimination. That is what Sudoku is about. You have this 9 by 9 grid to fill in with the numbers 1 through 9, and it looks impossible. But you solve it one cell at a time, by figuring out what numbers CAN'T go there. If you aren't into Sudoku yet, you need to try it. It delays Alzheimer’s as effectively as exercise, and is a lot less work.

So you start your decision process by figuring out what you can't do. If you are covered by an employer drug plan, the sponser is required to notify you by November 15 how it compares with the Medicare minimum. If it is better, you are not going to switch. Also, if electing Medicare Part D causes you to lose all of your other employer coverage, you are going to want to stay put, at least until your employer tells you you can do better with Medicare. If you don't have much in the way of drug expenses, say, less than $1000 a year, it is hoped you will be scared into signing up by the future "penalty" to support everybody else. Not too hard there either. But if you have no current drug coverage other than those discount cards that are going away (they actually worked, to my surprise), and some hefty costs, it is time to pick a carrier.

If there are 50 plus carriers listed for your area, all with some differences, how do you figure that out? The government web site Drug Plan Finder actually purports to work now. You put in the drugs you take, and it comes back with an annual cost to you. When I first entered my drugs, the best on my list was just over $1000, and the worst about $4,000. Since then the difference has shrunk, as insurers adjust their plans, as they can do weekly. The difference is still substantial, but it is still easy to see who is cheaper, and you would need a good reason to chose a plan with a higher total cost. Be sure to click on "Select Below" in the Plan Information column, then "View Cost Details". That will show you the annual cost for the mail order pharmacy. The cheapest one there may not be the cheapest showing in the first schedule, which is the retail pharmacy cost. In my case, all the pharmacies I would normally use accepted the cheapest plan, but I plan to use mail order, which is clearly the better deal, and you get 90 days supply at a time, instead of just 30. I guess I won't have to stress about this much. You can limit the list of pharmacies before you get your list of plans, but I wouldn't do that until I knew there was a problem.

A word about the web site, http://www.medicare.gov/. Since it is like the lecture that tries to be all things to all people, you have to labor through, and some choices are not obvious. Start by clicking on Compare Medicare Drug Plans. That is what you are there for. Even after you have entered the drugs you take and have your list of plans, you have to be careful. For most people, the estimated annual cost will not appear to equal the total of "What You'll Pay" in three colums, the annual deductible, the monthly drug premium, and the monthly cost share. Now you would expect that if you add the premium and the cost share, multiple times 12, and add the deductible, you should get the stated estimated annual cost. Anyone taking a couple of the more expensive drugs will push into the into the "donut hole", where there is no coverage, before the year is out. I will have some more to say about that in "horseshoes and hand grenades".

Chuck Cooper