'Mixed successes' of Medicare Part D

In a column today, The Wall Street Journal's David Wessel looks at the Medicare Part D experiment and concludes that so far the benefit is not paying off quite as well as supporters in government had hoped. The benefit is a free market approach to a major problem, and that's all good, Wessel writes. However, a majority of seniors remain confused about the benefit and appear to be blaming Washington. The problem to a large degree is that the benefit's designers "overlooked research about how consumers cope with an overwhelming array of choices."

- read this article from The Wall Street Journal

ALSO: Reports that 21 million Americans have signed up for the new prescription drug benefit are a bit "misleading," argues the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A new analysis finds that only about 1 million people have signed up. The other 20 million were automatically enrolled by either insurers or the government. Article