Report criticizes Medicare drug plan costs

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. taxpayers and Medicare patients could have saved almost $15 billion in 2007 if private health insurers had cut expenses for prescription drug coverage and negotiated bigger discounts, a report from Democratic staff of a House of Representatives panel said on Monday.

The Medicare prescription drug benefits offered by private insurers operate with "high administrative costs, sales expenses and profits," the report said.

Staff for Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by California Rep. Henry Waxman, based their conclusions on proprietary cost and pricing data obtained from 12 insurers that provide drug coverage to more than 18 million Medicare patients.

"The cost and pricing data obtained by the committee reveal that use of private insurers to deliver Medicare drug coverage is driving up costs and producing only limited savings on drug prices," the report said.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1227570120071015

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Did anybody expect something different? I buy a common insulin every month for my dog.

In May 2004 it sold for $18, today it's $39.

[12string]

3. drug costs

My insulin went from 39 to 86 a bottle.I use two a
month.Medicare pays $7.86 a bottle.                           
      

[OneBlueSky]

2. savings from negotiating drug costs could fund the Medicare "donut hole" . . .

in which I currently reside, to the tune of $300/month . . . and I still have to pay the premiums . . . it sucks . . .

[damntexdem]

4. Could have paid for half of five years of SCHIP.

Just two years and SCHIP would have been fully funded.

[sutz12]

5. If you watch television, you know where a lot of the money went.

Advertising for drugs and alternate plans has soared. :shrug:

Any time corporations start pushing "choices" I try to keep a strong hand on my wallet.

The real cheapest plan is to cover everybody for everything.