Medicare ’doughnut hole’ looms for drug customers

Want to know what to expect with your Medicare part D prescription drug plan this year? The "donut" hole is coming up. I know because I've disappeared into the hole as early as the middle of the year. I'm still not clear how it will work this year, but this article offers some help. When I read that "Companies that make brand-name pharmaceuticals are providing 50-percent discounts," I still want to know, what companies and what drugs?

AP Report: Democrats are talking about closing the Medicare coverage gap for prescription drugs, but it seems to me the cost will be too great. They want to include it in their health care bill, which will include slashing Medicare and Medicare Advantage. The Senate has already killed an effort to allow access to low-cost prescriptions from abroad. I'll stay with the donut hole, thank you. But I do sympathize with this woman:

Anna Bollerman, a retired real estate broker, found herself pleading with doctors for free drug samples and maxing out her credit cards when she wound up in the doughnut hole this year.

"It put me in a position where I was totally embarrassed because I had to beg for medicine," said Bollerman, 80, of Bayville, N.J. She's coping with diabetes and a serious degenerative condition that affects her eyes.

A 90-day supply of one of her medications costs $1,496 when she's in the doughnut hole, said Bollerman. Her monthly income is a little over $1,500.

"All my life I was independent, and this is what I'm left with?" she said. "Whoever thought of this, it wasn't a very good idea."

I've done exactly the same thing and felt the same way.

Into the donut hole

While I have been critical of health care reform, I do have complaints about my current health care plan. I'm on Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit with its infamous donut hole, a gap in coverage between $2,700 and $4,350. Here's how it works. You pay 100 percent of your drug costs while in this gap. In 2007, according to this report, about 25 percent of people on Part D or 3.4 million seniors reached the gap by July or August.

I use all the generics I can, but as a diabetic I still have several expensive prescriptions. Insulin is expensive, so are syringes and test strips. Of course my blood testing supplies are free, but apparently they still count toward my total drug cost and help to put me in the donut hole. So I'm really paying for them anyway, and that's not fair in my opinion. My test strips cost almost $1.50 apiece.

I also take an expensive blood pressure med because I am alergic to the cheaper ACE inhibitors. They give me a hacking cough.

I have just fallen in the donut hole and will probably remain in it until the end of the year. Has anyone ever tried to tell you about the free lunch?