(Washington D.C.)- Nearly two months after President Bush and House Republican leaders refused to extend the deadline to enroll in a Medicare drug plan this year, U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, highlighted a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report released today that found that call centers run by private Medicare drug plans provided inaccurate and incomplete information most of the time. GAO determined that the private plans responsible for running the new Medicare drug benefit "did not consistently provide callers with accurate and complete information."

"The GAO Report released today underscores how justified seniors were in being confused when trying to enroll in the new prescription drug program," said U.S. Rep. Levin.  "Because seniors did not get their most basic questions answered correctly, many were unable to enroll by the deadline.  Those who did enroll despite the confusion are locked into a plan they may have received inaccurate information about and are unable to change until January of 2007.  Many of those locked-in seniors are headed toward a giant gap in coverage where they will pay premiums, but not get any help with their medicines."

The report released today was the second GAO report on information Medicare beneficiaries received about the drug program.  Their first report, released in May, found that Medicare?s toll-free hotline often game inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading information, and that wait times for help were long.  In this second report, GAO found that in most instances, customer service staff for insurance companies selling prescription coverage to Medicare beneficiaries were unable to accurately respond to simple questions about plan costs, low-income coverage, plan formulary procedures, and plan utilization management techniques. The GAO report made the following conclusions:

-- Two-thirds of phone calls were not answered completely or accurately. The phone centers operated by insurance companies gave accurate and complete answers on only 34% of calls. The centers provided no information at all on 15% of calls; inaccurate information on 22% of calls; and incomplete information on 29% of calls.
-- Some insurance companies gave out inaccurate information even more frequently. GAO found that two drug plans gave inaccurate or incomplete information at least 75% of the time. Only one drug plan provider gave beneficiaries accurate information more than 50% of the time.
-- Drug plans were unable to provide critical cost information for beneficiaries to choose among plans. Each of the providers called by GAO offered several different plan choices. Two GAO questions focused on which of these plan offerings would provide beneficiaries with the lowest out-of-pocket costs and what these costs would be. Medicare providers failed to give accurate or complete answers to these questions more than 70% of the time, and often severely underestimated the actual out-of-pocket costs beneficiaries would face. Ten times, sponsors' call centers underestimated costs by at least $1,000. On one phone call, the cost estimates provided by the plan sponsor were over $6,000 less than the actual costs under the plan.
-- Low-income beneficiaries often received inaccurate information. Another question asked by GAO sought information about which plans offered by the provider were available to low-income beneficiaries with no premium. This question was answered incorrectly or inaccurately 66% of the time.
-- Medicare drug plans often provided inconsistent information. Providers often gave different answers to the same question - for example, saying that one of their plans was the least expensive on one call, then saying that a different plan was the least expensive on a separate call.

"Democrats want seniors to have the simple, reliable, and affordable drug coverage they earned, and our Prescription for Change will ensure that they get it," said Levin.

Last month, Democrats released their Prescription for Change that aims to fix the new drug program by making it simple, reliable, and affordable for seniors. For more information on the Democratic plan, please click here.

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