Following Friday's announcement that CMS has selected 10 companies to provide Medicare Part D coverage nationwide, much attention is on the market. Initial media reports stress how difficult choosing between competing plans offered under the government's new prescription drug benefit may be for seniors. That explains why both insurers and CMS are taking pains to make the enrollment process as easy as possible and why we can expect to see a series of major ad campaigns kick off after October 1, when the government's moratorium on marketing the plans expires.
Adding substantially to the confusion is the fact that different providers are approaching the benefit from very different angles, meaning that consumers are likely to be hearing a lot of variations on the same theme. The Kaiser Family Foundation's Tricia Neumann commented to the AP that "Locally, if you're in an area with a stand-alone drug program and HMOs and PPOs, the confusion is understanding the difference in the products."
- see this story from the Hartford Courant