Medicare confusion

Washington, D.C.

Medicare began signing up the first participants for a new prescription drug benefit this week, but many of the nation’s elderly remained confused about the program. Participants will pay a premium and a deductible, but the federal government will spend $720 billion over the next 10 years subsidizing the cost of their medicines. Congress approved the benefit with great fanfare in 2003 as part of the Medicare Modernization Act. A recent survey showed that 37 percent of eligible Americans don’t want anything to do with the program, while 31 percent had a favorable opinion. Another 31 percent didn’t know enough about it to say. One doctor associated with the survey said there was no easy answer to the “critical question: ‘What does this mean for me?’”

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