Medicare Drug Cards Difficult for Seniors

Discount drug card decision is a breeze for seniors -- the ones who are expert at Internet and Excel

The plan that is up and (not) running now is something just short of a disaster. The administration decided to offer discount drug cards as an election-year party favor to Medicare recipients waiting for the prescription drug plan to begin in 2006. Folks 65 and over were told they could pick the best deal from a list of competitors, pay an annual fee, and save as much as 25 percent on pills. Nothing to it.

On sign-up day, we saw an upbeat Doctor and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist comparison-shopping his cheery way across the government Web site. After clicking A for Allegra and he declared: "Now this is pretty amazing."

Alas, "amazing" is not the word most seniors are using. Try "overwhelming," "confusing," or "frustrating." As one 91-year-old in Cleveland told a reporter, "You'll have to hire a $500-an-hour attorney to find out if you'll save 5 cents."

The Web site is impenetrable -- memo to the government: only a quarter of senior citizens even use the Internet. The 800 number is so overloaded that it kept hanging up on me. And that's just the beginning.

All in all, there are more than 70 drug discounters each offering different prices for 209 drugs. Want Lipitor, Allegra, Vioxx and Lotrel? You can check the prices at each of the discounters in your ZIP code, buy yourself a spreadsheet and by the time you're finished, you'll need to add a little Xanax.

The discount drug plan is a near-caricature of the whole problem of too many choices with too many uncertainties. Those who are eligible not only have to comparison shop till they drop, they have to buy a card that commits them for a year but allows the company to change prices every week. They may choose a company that has a good price on one drug, but then the doctor prescribes another.

And at the end there's still a chance for remorse if the savings are not as "amazing" as they'd get from an Internet site, a local drugstore or a bus trip to Canada.