Editorial: Drug benefit fair to all.(Opinions)(House and Senate recognize importance of encouraging employers to retain retiree prescription drug benefit plans)(Editorial)

Business Insurance, July, 2003

While a final congressional agreement on adding a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program still is a ways off, we're encouraged that both the House and Senate recognize the importance of encouraging employers to retain their retiree prescription drug benefit plans. Both the House and Senate bills, in somewhat different ways, would give employers financial incentives to offer a prescription drug benefit, as long as that benefit is at least as generous as the drug benefit that would be available to retirees through Medicare.

The incentives are not insignificant. Benefit consultants say that employers keeping their prescription drug plans and collecting payments from the government for doing so could cut their prescription drug costs by up to 35% a...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.