By Mary Johnson, editor Remember “Flo”?  In 1999 she was the blond, perky, mature lady who came onto our TV screens telling us that she was here “to tell seniors about changes that affect our medicines.”  She would end by saying “I don’t want big government in my medicine cabinet.”  Flo implied that, if Medicare provided ...

What To Do When The Doctor Recommends A Budget Busting Drug Rick Delaney, Chairman of the Board Recently we received the following:  My doctor wants to put me on a new medication for my rheumatoid arthritis, but my Medicare Part D plan says my cost would be $1,000 per month.  The doctor says that there are pharmacy ...

Public anger over the rising costs of insulin and other key life-saving drugs has grown in recent years, and now a new federal analysis reveals that Medicare Part D pays far more for medications than any other government health program.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) compared prices paid by Medicare Part D with prices paid ...

Prescription drug costs are one of the fastest-growing expenses in retirement.  Last year, about 23% of you postponed filling one or more prescriptions due to cost, according to the results pouring into TSCL’s latest Senior Survey.  Our latest findings also suggest that 27% of retirees spend at least $95 per month on prescriptions.  These individuals ...

Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage hit a new milestone this year.  The highly — loathed “doughnut hole” or “coverage gap” closed this year.  But that doesn’t mean prescriptions will be free.  The co-insurance in the former Part D doughnut hole dropped to 25% of all drug costs.  That’s the good news.  But the out ...

An estimated 10 million Medicare beneficiaries who are covered by a Medigap policy and Part D plan, spent $5,000 in 2019 — $416 per month — just for Medicare premiums according to findings from TSCL’s 2019 Senior Survey.  That’s a significant percentage of a retiree’s household budget when the average Social Security benefit in 2019 ...

(Washington, DC)  Making the effort to check health and prescription drug coverage during the Medicare Open Enrollment Period, October 15th through December 7th, can pay off in significant savings for retirees, says The Senior Citizens League (TSCL).  “The job does not have to be overwhelming,” says Mary Johnson, a Medicare and Social Security policy analyst ...

The United States pays the highest drug prices of any developed nation in the world.  We asked participants in our 2019 Senior Survey to evaluate three leading proposals that would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.  Here’s how each proposal fared:   Base Medicare Part D drug prices on the prices paid in other industrialized countries such ...

As Congress and Democratic candidates debate Medicare-for-all, TSCL’s 2019 Senior Survey finds tepid support among older Americans for expanding Medicare to everyone.  On the other hand, our survey found some support for allowing the 55-64 group the opportunity to “buy-in” to Medicare. Here’s how Senior Survey participants responded: “In general, do you feel that the eligibility age ...

A new analysis of twelve frequently- prescribed drugs illustrates that Medicare recipients frequently overpay for their medications.  Because Medicare doesn’t negotiate drug prices, there are wild swings in prices between Part D drug plans.  The difference in cost for the same drug can be in the thousands of dollars for the most expensive drugs and ...