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Drug
companies reap ‘boon’ for profits thanks to Medicare
Part D…More
problems arise, this time with premium payments not
being properly deducted…
Two newspapers on Friday featured stories on the Medicare drug
benefit. Summaries appear below.
-
San
Francisco Chronicle: The Medicare drug benefit
has "been a
boon for pharmaceutical companies and has swelled the
membership ranks of health insurers. But it's uncertain whether
this success will last," the
Chronicle reports.
GlaxoSmithKline's second quarter net income this year
increased by 14%, while
Merck,
Schering Plough,
Wyeth,
Roche and
Pfizer have all had increased sales because of the drug
benefit. The finances of health insurers
UnitedHealth Group,
Humana and
WellPoint also were boosted by the new plan. According to
the Chronicle,
"[e]xperts caution that the Medicare effect could fade,"
particularly if Congress institutes price controls on drug
manufacturers (Colliver,
San Francisco Chronicle, 8/4).
-
St. Paul
Pioneer Press: Some beneficiaries are
receiving bills for their drug plan premiums, even though they
asked for the premiums to be deducted from their Social Security
checks, the Pioneer Press
reports.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota estimates that about
90,000 people across seven Midwest states could be affected by
the billing error.
CMS and Social Security officials during a teleconference
Thursday said they are working to correct the problem and have
told health insurers to maintain coverage for those people with
overdue premium payments.
Humana has offered to let 35,000 people switch from the
automatic deduction plan to monthly billing, and Blue Cross is
contacting those individuals with overdue premium payments and
offering them six months to catch up, company spokesperson
Monika Strom said. Medicare spokesperson Peter Ashkenaz said
that most beneficiaries are experiencing no problems with the
drug benefit, adding that people with automatic deduction issues
will not be disenrolled (Olson,
St. Paul Pioneer Press,
8/4).
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