Historical Support for A Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit
Historically, Medicare has not provided coverage for outpatient prescription drugs. Given the important role prescription drugs play in health care, and the rising costs associated with them, different proposals to add a drug benefit to Medicare have been proposed in the past. The most recent - the Medicare Modernization Act – passed in 2003 and created Medicare Part D, an outpatient prescription drug benefit set to go into effect in January 2006.
In the period leading up to passage of this law, there was overwhelming support for the addition of a prescription drug benefit to Medicare (see Historical Support For Addition of Prescription Drug Benefit to Medicare), and this support was consistent even when the cost of adding such coverage was discussed (see Historical Support For Drug Benefit Even if Costs Increase).
Current Support for A Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit
In August 2005, for the first time since we began tracking views on the Medicare drug benefit, equal shares of seniors say that they have a favorable impression (32%) of the drug benefit as an unfavorable one (32%) (see Current Views Of Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit).
Between February 2004 and December 2004, around four to five in ten seniors said they have an unfavorable impression of the new law, compared with around two to three in ten seniors who said they have a favorable impression. Since December 2004, the share of seniors who say they have an unfavorable impression has fallen (32% currently unfavorable, versus 42% in December 2004), and favorable impressions are up modestly compared with 4 months ago (32% currently, versus 21% in April 2005) (see Current Views of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit).
Seniors’ Views on the New Prescription Drug Benefit
Majorities of seniors expect the new benefit will be at least somewhat helpful for people on Medicare. More than six in ten (65%) say it will be “somewhat” or “very” helpful for a typical person on Medicare, and even more think the benefit will be helpful for people on Medicare with very high prescription drug costs (75%) or no drug coverage (74%) and for low-income people (70%) (see Seniors' Perceived Helpfulness Of New Medicare Drug Benefit).
Seniors are less sure the benefit will help them personally; just over two in ten (22%) say the benefit will be “very” helpful, while more than three in ten (35%) say it will not be helpful at all to them personally (see Seniors' Perceived Helpfulness Of New Medicare Drug Benefit).
Seniors’ Understanding of Benefit
With less than 3 months to go before seniors begin deciding whether to enroll in a Medicare drug plan, there are gaps in seniors’ understanding of the benefit. Currently, about six in ten seniors say they do not have a good understanding of the new benefit (60%) (see Seniors' General Understanding Of New Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit), and do not have enough information to understand how the new benefit will impact them personally (62%) (see Seniors' Understanding Of Personal Impact).
However, nearly four in ten (37%) seniors say they understand the new benefit at least “somewhat” well, up from April 2005 when about three in ten (29%) seniors said they understood the new benefit “very” or “somewhat” well (see Seniors' General Understanding Of New Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit). More than half (55%) of seniors recognize that, in general, seniors need to sign up in order to receive the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. Just over one in seven (15%) seniors believe that coverage will begin automatically, and about three in ten (31%) don’t know (see Seniors' Beliefs About Enrollment).
Seniors’ Plans for Enrollment
The share of seniors who say they will enroll in a Medicare drug plan is up modestly in August 2005, with more than two in ten (22%) seniors saying they plan to enroll, more than double the share that said the same in April 2005 (9%). However, four in ten (40%) seniors have currently not decided whether to enroll in the new prescription drug benefit and one-third (33%) say they will not enroll (see Seniors' Plans For Enrollment in 2006).
Among the 73% of seniors who say they will NOT enroll, or haven’t heard enough to decide whether to enroll in a Medicare prescription drug plan, the most commonly cited reason is that they already have help paying for prescription drugs from an insurance plan or program (55%). Other common reasons include that seniors don’t think a Medicare drug plan will save them money (42%) or they don’t know enough about the new benefit (41%) (see Seniors' Reported Reasons for NOT Enrolling).
Information and Education Campaign
Efforts to disseminate information about the new Medicare drug benefit appear to be reaching seniors. More than half (52%) of seniors say they have received some information about the new benefit, and the vast majority (90%) of these seniors say the information came to them in the mail (see Information About Medicare Drug Benefit). Among seniors who say they have received information, the most commonly cited sources are the Social Security Administration (55%) and the AARP (52%) (see Seniors' Reported Sources of Information).
About half (46%) of seniors say they have heard of Medicare’s toll-free phone number, 1-800-MEDICARE, while a similar share (49%) say they have not heard about the hotline. About three in ten (29%) seniors have heard the Medicare’s website, Medicare.gov, while about seven in ten (69%) have not (see Seniors' Reported Awareness Of Medicare Information Sources).
