Senior Health Insurance Professionals

01/09/2025

https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/medicare/problems-with-medicare-advantage-plans-keep-mounting?utm_campaign=medicare-market-insights-2024-recap&utm_campaign=medicare-market-insights-2024-recap&utm_source=www.medicaremarketinsights.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=medicare-market-insights-2024-recap

Complaints and problems with Medicare Advantage include denial of service and slow care approvals. Consumers need to pay attention.

11/09/2024

fyi…

On November 8, 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2025 premiums, deductibles, and coinsurance amounts for the Medicare Part A and Part B programs, and the 2025 Medicare Part D income-related monthly adjustment amounts. Medicare Part B Premium and DeductibleMedicare...

10/23/2024

Call me Nostradamus ;-)

With Amazon and Walmart getting into the pharmacy game, I see this as to the beginning of the end of retail pharmacy/brick and mortar facilities...just like what happened to malls/stores for clothes and any other item(s).

The new service is already available in six states, and gives the supermarket giant a leg up against struggling drugstores like CVS and Walgreens.

10/22/2024

fyi...

Medicare Advantage turmoil: insurers dropping plans, cutting benefits, and raising rates for beneficiaries. Find out more.

10/17/2024

fyi.....

Learn why hundreds of CVS and Walgreens pharmacy stores in the U.S. are closing as changing consumer trends favor mail-order and digital options.

10/14/2024

Another Misleading Headline....this seems like good news. However, a lot of these 272 medications are already have $0 co-pays.

Politics + Big Pharma=Not Good

Public comment period opens; new model is based on current lists of large pharmacies and retailers.

09/24/2024

FYI...

CMS is expected to announce in early 2025 the list of up to 15 Medicare Part D drugs that will be subject to price negotiations in 2025, with negotiated prices expected to be implemented in 2027. 

08/20/2024

10 drugs to see price cuts of up to 79% off the 2023 list price
Since being first introduced to the market, manufacturers have steadily increased the list prices on the first 10 drugs selected for the Medicare drug price negotiation program. These drugs are among the highest total spending in Medicare Part D.

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The new Medicare negotiated drug prices will cut the list prices on these drugs by between 38% and 79%, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). However, these figures don’t consider or account for the rebates and discounts that drugmakers already provide to Part D plans, information that has not been released publicly.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long long time,” President Joe Biden said Thursday, during his first policy-oriented appearance with Vice President Kamala Harris since leaving the presidential race. “We pay more for prescription drugs, it’s not hyperbole, than any advanced nation in the world.”

Despite pharmaceutical companies' attempts to quash the program in federal court, the price cuts have been approved.

The 10 medications and the discounts off the 2023 list prices are as follows:

Imbruvica: 38%
Entresto: 53%
Eliquis: 56%
Xarelto: 62%
Stelara: 66%
Jardiance: 66%
Enbrel: 67%
Farxiga: 68%
Fiasp/NovoLog: 76%
Januvia: 79%
Seniors and people with disabilities who are on Medicare and take these drugs will also benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act’s $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket spending, which goes into effect in 2025. The cap will save 19 million beneficiaries an average of $400 per year. That's in addition to the savings from the new negotiated drug prices.

02/15/2023

Cash injection: could we cure all disease with a trillion dollars?

The long read: Could such a large amount of money end the Covid pandemic? Eradicate disease? Provide universal healthcare and fund vaccine research?