Elderly people begin using Medicare drug discount cards on Tuesday in an experiment that has gotten off to a slow start but promises to have big implications for politics and health policy, regardless of whether it delivers big savings. The program is the first major test of the new Medicare law before the November elections. If discount cards do not deliver the promised savings, the experiment could stoke public anger over drug prices and increase political pressure for further steps to make drugs more affordable. The Bush administration predicts that 7.3 million of the 41 million Medicare beneficiaries will sign up this year for cards, which, it says, will cut retail drug prices by 10 percent to 25 percent or more.
About 2.3 million of the 4.5 million people in Medicare health maintenance organizations will receive cards automatically, without filing applications, says Mohit M. Ghose, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group. But it appears that fewer than one million people in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program have signed up for cards.
"We don't have any precise enrollment counts," said Dr. Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
AARP, the lobby for older Americans, said that while it had received thousands of inquiries, only 400 people had signed up for its Medicare-approved discount card. Prime Therapeutics, which manages drug services for seven Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans offering cards, said fewer than 1,000 people had signed up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/politics/01CARE.html?hp
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