Nita Aymond knows she's fortunate enough to be able to afford her
prescriptions, so she doesn't complain about the cost.
"I really never paid much attention," said Ms. Aymond, 76, who lives in
a retirement community near downtown. "I've got to have my drugs."
Still, when she heard about the new Medicare discount cards, "I was very
interested," she said. "At least I wanted to check it out."
But all the numbers and options looked too complicated. So Ms. Aymond
hired Kathryn Gohman, a health-care consultant, to navigate the new
system and analyze her options.
Ms. Aymond has private medical insurance through AARP that pays 50
percent of her drug costs for the first $3,000 annually, then a smaller
percentage after that.
For the eight prescription drugs she takes regularly, she paid about
$2,900 out of pocket in the last year, but Ms. Gohman figures the cost
has risen to just over $300 a month.
After about two hours of work on the Medicare Web site and a few phone
calls to check on details, this is what Ms. Gohman found:
With the cheapest discount card that covered all of Ms. Aymond's
prescriptions, she would have to spend $532 a month. That price would be
the same at all the pharmacies near her home. If she used mail-order
pharmacies covered by the card, the price would drop to $397 per month.
The conclusion, at least for now, was clear. "I'll stick with what I've
got," Ms. Aymond said.
She probably could save some money with her current insurance plan by
shopping around for lower prices at discount stores or on the Internet.
But that doesn't factor in the hassles of long drives, extra paperwork
and constant monitoring of changing prices.
"It's too complicated," Ms. Aymond said. "Now I don't have to go to any
trouble. I'm just too old to deal with it."
Hank Gilliam, one of her neighbors, who also concluded he doesn't need
the Medicare card, joked that with all the options and complications,
"it makes your teeth hurt."
"If they were real, they'd hurt," she agreed.
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