As
a result of the Affordable Care Act, seniors and people with
disabilities in Arizona have saved a total of $65,803,605 on
prescription drugs since the law was enacted. The Centers for Medicare
& Medicaid Services (CMS) also released data today showing that in
the first five months of 2012, 12,981 people with Medicare in Arizona
saved a total of $8,921,509 on prescription drugs in “donut hole”
coverage gap for an average of $687 in savings this year.
“Thanks
to the health care law, millions of people with Medicare have been
paying less for prescription drugs,” said CMS Acting Administrator
Marilyn Tavenner. “The law is helping people with Medicare lower their
medical costs, and giving them more resources to stay healthy. By 2020,
the donut hole will be fully closed thanks to the Affordable Care Act.”
Nationwide,
since the Affordable Care Act was passed, more than 5,254,000 people
with Medicare have saved over $3.7 billion on prescription drugs in the
donut hole. This includes new data for the first five months of 2012,
when more than 745,000 people with Medicare saved an average of $651 on
the prescription drugs, for a total of $485.3 million in savings.
These
savings are automatically applied to drugs that people with Medicare
purchase, after they hit the Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage
gap or “donut hole.”
People
with Medicare who hit the donut hole in 2010 received a one-time $250
rebate. In 2011, people with Medicare began receiving a 50 percent
discount on covered brand name drugs and 7 percent coverage of generic
drugs in the donut hole. This year, Medicare coverage for generic drugs
in the coverage gap has risen to 14 percent. Coverage for both brand
name and generic drugs in the gap will continue to increase over time
until 2020, when the coverage gap will no longer exist.
For more information on how the Affordable Care Act closes the Medicare drug benefit coverage gap “donut hole,” please visit: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/
For State-by-State information on the amount of savings people with Medicare have received in the donut hole, please visit: https://www.cms.gov/Plan-
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2 comments:
What about the vast majority without Medicare or Medicaid, what have they saved since ACA was inacted?
And did the pharmaceutical companies cut their prices to provide this savings, or did we just shift this cost to SOMEONE ELSE???
Making ME pay (through higher insurance premiums) for someone else's medical savings does not, in net effect, save one thin dime in overall health care costs. All it does is make the healthy pay for the sick.
I'm not saying if that is right or wrong, but let's at least call a spade a spade and stop pretend this is something it is not. Nothing has been saved by Obamacare; the costs have just been renamed and reassigned to someone else, either now or in the future.
Five members of our Supreme Court should be impeached, recalled, fired, encouraged to resign, whatever means there might be to get rid of them. They have just turned the constitution into a joke, once again.
This is a very sad day for America. Our entire government is BROKEN. The President is out of control; Congress is populated by rich egomaniacs who couldn't care less about the 99% of people who are struggling to survive in this economy; our Supreme Court is busy rewriting the Constitution through dubious and probably bought-and-paid-for decisions that completely disregard both the written word and the INTENT of the document.
It's hard to be proud to be an American these days. It's hard to even know what it MEANS to be an American when our leaders are this corrupt and/or incompetent.
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