Riding the rollercoaster: the ups and downs in out-of-pocket spending under the standard Medicare drug benefit
Authors
Stuart, BruceBriesacher, Becky A.
Shea, Dennis G.
Cooper, Barbara
Baysac, Fatima S.
Limcangco, M. Rhonda
UMass Chan Affiliations
Meyers Primary Care InstituteDepartment of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2005-07-14Keywords
*Actuarial AnalysisAged
Aged, 80 and over
Chronic Disease
Female
Financing, Personal
Health Expenditures
Health Maintenance Organizations
Humans
Insurance, Pharmaceutical Services
Male
Marital Status
Medicare
Poverty
United States
Health Services Research
Primary Care
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This study projects how much Medicare beneficiaries who sign up for the standard Part D drug benefit in 2006 will pay in quarterly out-of-pocket payments through 2008. In the first year we estimate that about 38 percent of enrollees will hit the benefit's no-coverage zone, known as the "doughnut hole," and that 14 percent will exceed the catastrophic threshold. Because drug spending is highly persistent over time, beneficiaries who experience the biggest gaps in coverage are likely to do so year after year, with potentially serious financial consequences.Source
Health Aff (Millwood). 2005 Jul-Aug;24(4):1022-31. Link to article on publisher's siteDOI
10.1377/hlthaff.24.4.1022Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/36979PubMed ID
16012142Related Resources
Link to Article in PubMedae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1377/hlthaff.24.4.1022