JAMA report gives Part D mixed review

WASHINGTON According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Medicare Part D, while being effective in providing more Americans with a prescription drug plan still has not eased all the financial burdens of the elderly.

“It’s definitely a mixed picture,” said Jeanne Madden of Harvard Medical School, one of the researchers. “We saw some positive effects that we attribute to Part D.”

Madden and colleagues found that while 14.1 percent of beneficiaries in 2005 reported skipping pills and prescriptions because of their cost in 2005, before the benefit existed, the figure dropped to 11.5 percent in 2006 after Part D was introduced.

In 2006, 7.6 percent of beneficiaries reported cutting back on spending on basic needs such as food, housing and utilities to afford prescription drugs, down from 11.1 percent who reported doing so in 2005 before Part D.

However, patients classified as the sickest reported no improvement in skipping medications because they could not afford to pay for them even after the Part D benefit began.

The findings were based on responses to a government survey by 24,234 people enrolled in Medicare in 2004, 2005 and 2006.