Voices of Beneficiaries: Attitudes Toward Medicare Part D Open Enrollment for 2008

This report focuses on the recent experiences of a group of 35 Medicare beneficiaries in the early years of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, including a number who were enrolled in a Medicare Part D drug plan in 2007. It looks at their attitudes about the open enrollment season for 2008, and their interest related to switching to a new Part D plan for 2008.

It finds that most enrollees do not intend to reexamine their drug coverage options for the coming year or switch to a different Part D plan. Some enrollees are content with their experiences in their current plan, while others say they do not want to revisit the time-consuming process of comparing and choosing from among the many plans available.

is the fourth and final report that came out of a series of one-on-one structured interviews over two years with a diverse group of Medicare beneficiaries in four cities: Baltimore, Miami, Sacramento, and Lincoln, Nebraska. The Kaiser Family Foundation commissioned Lake Research Partners and American Viewpoint to conduct these interviews.

The first report, “Profiles of Medicare Beneficiaries With Medicaid Drug Coverage Prior to the Medicare Drug Benefit,” profiled four people who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid to provide greater insights into their circumstances as the new Medicare drug benefit went into effect. The second report, “Voices of Beneficiaries: Early Experiences with the Medicare Drug Benefit,” addressed the first months of Part D coverage in 2006. The third report, “Voices of Beneficiaries: Medicare Part D Insights and Observations One Year Later,” found that drug plan enrollees generally said they were satisfied with their drug coverage, but many of them didn’t fully understand how their plan worked.

Report (.pdf)

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