June 01, 2006
Caps on Rx Drug Benefits Do Not Lower Insurers' Costs
From KaiserNetwork.org
Thursday, June 01, 2006Prescription Drugs
Caps on Rx Drug Benefits Do Not Lower Insurers' Costs, Can Result in Expensive Complications, Study of Medicare Beneficiaries Says
Medicare beneficiaries with caps on prescription drug coverage spend 31% less on medications than those without caps but are more likely than those without caps to skip doses of treatments, visit hospital emergency departments and die, according to a study published on Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Washington Post reports (Washington Post, 6/1).
For the study, researchers at Kaiser Permanente, the University of California-San Francisco and Harvard University examined the cost of medical care and clinical outcomes for 199,179 Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in a Kaiser Medicare+Choice plan in 2003. Researchers compared a group of 157,275 participants with a $1,000 annual cap on prescription drug coverage with a group of 41,904 participants without a cap (Hechinger, Wall Street Journal, 6/1). All participants had to make copayments of between $15 and $30 for brand-name prescription drugs and copays of $10 for generic medications (Washington Post, 6/1).