Officials: Drug plan enrollment up sharply

May 17, 2006

At least 1 million senior Americans reportedly signed up for the Medicare prescription drug plan in the program's final week of enrollment.

Quoting a preliminary tally, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt says 38 million of the 42.5 million eligible elderly and disabled people have drug coverage through the new Medicare plan, an employer or another government health program, reports The Washington Post.

Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, called the program is a "historic success."

While the officials were lauding the plan, U.S. lawmakers planned to revise the rules for those Medicare patients who missed the deadline. One bill would eliminate a financial penalty for those who wait to enroll until the next signup period later this year, the report said.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International


print this article email this article download pdf blog this article bookmark this article     Stumble it Digg this share on Facebook retweet share on Reddit add to delicious
Rate this story - 1 /5 (1 vote)


May 17, 2006 all stories

Comments: 0

1 /5 (1 vote)
  • Stumble this up

  • Digg this

  • share this

  • hide
  • Related Stories

  • What's in health care proposals for 5 Americans
    created Dec 20, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0
  • Obama hails 60th Senate vote for health care
    created Dec 19, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0
  • 'Doughnut hole' unites seniors wary of health bill
    created Dec 04, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0
  • Diabetes cases to double and costs to triple by 2034
    created Nov 27, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0
  • Experts favor broad medicare reforms to control costs and foster health-care innovations
    created Nov 03, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0


Other News

US Senate votes on landmark health bill

Medicine & Health / Health

created Dec 24, 2009 | popularity 2.6 / 5 (5) | comments 5

Senators gave Barack Obama a huge political boost on Thursday by passing a sweeping remake of the US health care system that aims to extend coverage to 31 million uninsured Americans.


Splitting fluorescent protein helps image clusters in live cells

Medicine & Health / Research

created 16 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Half a protein is better than none, and in this case, it's way better than a whole one. A Rice University lab has discovered that dividing a particular fluorescent protein and using it as a tag is handy for analyzing the ...


'Self-seeding' of cancer cells may play a critical role in tumor progression

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created Dec 24, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Cancer progression is commonly thought of as a process involving the growth of a primary tumor followed by metastasis, in which cancer cells leave the primary tumor and spread to distant organs. A new study by researchers ...


New tool in the fight against mosquito-borne disease: A microbial 'mosquito net'

Medicine & Health / Diseases

created Dec 24, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Earlier this year, researchers showed that they could cut the lives of disease-carrying mosquitoes in half by infecting them with a bacterium they took from fruit flies. Now, a new report in the December 24th issue of Cell, ...


Molecular anchor links the 2 inheritable diseases Fanconi anemia and Bloom's syndrome

Medicine & Health / Genetics

created Dec 24, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

A new study establishes a molecular link that bridges two rare inherited disorders and explains why these diseases result in genetic instability. The research, published by Cell Press in the December 24th issue of the journal ...