United States Seniors: More Bad Medicare Advice from Taxpayer-Fund-Wasting PBS

As noted here, here, here, and here, the United-States-taxpayer-funded (what a waste!) United States Public Broadcasting System (PBS) has been producing reams of bad advice for American seniors concerning Medicare all during this so-called Medicare open enrollment period, which ends in two weeks on December 7. For example, when PBS' web site's latest article says Part D drug plans are also

"free to charge you prices for premiums, deductibles and co-pays that differ from other plans"

that is literally true.

But PBS purposely fails to tell you that these charges and other plan aspects are OK'd by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) before the plan is permitted to enter the market. Part D is Part of Medicare. The insurer cannot literally do whatever it wants as PBS wants you to believe¹.

In particular there is a cap in the CMS regulations (or the law?) on the annual deductible of $320 in 2015. But very few plans have such a high deductible.

Historically most plans have had no deductible. There is a recent trend to have no deductible for generic drugs and a $100 deductible for brand-name drugs. Such plan design changes are the quid pro quo for the reduction of the co-pay in the donut hole from 100% to (by 2019) 25%. Previously, the roughly 90% of us on Medicare that use self-administered drugs but who came nowhere near the donut hole in terms of our prescription needs got a real good deal from Part D and the 5% of us or so in the donut hole just good a good deal (compared to paying for thousands of dollars worth of drugs out of pocket). Now the 90% of us get less of a good deal and the 5% of us affected by the donut hole get a better deal (you squeeze the ballon here, it pops out over there).

Note (see image) that only a few percent of the people on Medicare are fully affected by the donut hole, and no low-income senior need ever be affected by it.

¹Just so it's clear what these articles are really about, PBS doesn't actually care a whit about seniors. This whole series is designed to affect the debate on Medicare reform by misinforming people not yet of Medicare age. The people on Medicare already know perfectly well how it works and are not fooled by PBS' propaganda.