A Primer on Medicare Part D

Many seniors take no prescription drugs. Still, they need to sign up for the least expensive monthly plan -- or face steep penalties when they do sign up in the future.

While the government created the standards for what must be covered in Part D, it allowed private insurance companies to compete on the structure of their plans as well as the prices and co-payments they would charge. It's a challenge comparing the many variables, including the inexplicable "donut hole" that eliminates coverage after a certain level -- until the "catastrophic" level of costs is reached.

And to make choices even more confusing, the government also subsidizes Medicare "HMOs" to include prescription drugs in their coverage. So, seniors could choose a "stand-alone" Part D plan along with traditional Medicare Part A and B. Or they could choose an HMO -- simpler and typically less expensive, but perhaps limited in the choice of physicians and services they might need in the future.

But Medicare did one good thing that kept these choices from being incomprehensible. They created the online "Plan Finder" tool at the Medicare Web site. It is the only reasonably sane way to figure out which plan will cost you the least for your specific drugs and dosages.