Medicare Part D: Real People's Drug Costs

I've decided to take a look at real people's drug costs under Medicare Part D, and in particular how long they will spend in the coverage gap, or the donut hole, if you will. The first up is Marsha. (All names will be changed to protect their privacy) Marsha takes 8mg of Avandia once a day, 500mg of Glucophage twice a day, 10mg of Lipitor once a day, and 20mg of Monopril once a day.

Marsha's prescription drug coverage through Medicare will run out at the end of August using AArp's MedicareRx plan. (They have the best formulary site) She will never reach the catastrophic drug coverage, thus her coverage will, as I wrote earlier, fall off the cliff, not into the donut hole. Marsha's total out of pocket cost under Medicare D will be $2023.18 per year. ($1688.02 in drug costs plus $335.16 in premiums)

Now, if Marsha simply dropped out of the program after August, she could order her drugs through I Save Rx or another similar web site that imports drugs from other countries and her total cost would still be $1533.13 (I Save Rx quote), although I don't think that seniors should have to reach out to other countries that actually care about their elderly.

I used Medicare.gov, AARP MedicareRx, and I Save Rx to research these figures.

If you would like to participate in this study, either leave your prescription with dosage and number of times a day you take your meds in the comments or drop me an E-mail.

I should note that this is in no way an endorsement of either AARP MedicareRx or I Save Rx.