Given limits on how much the federal government will likely spend on a prescription drug benefit, this paper examines how costly a comprehensive drug benefit limited to persons with incomes below 175 percent of poverty would be. Details of any proposal clearly matter, including how comprehensive the benefits would be, how the benefit would be integrated with Medicaid and existing state pharmacy programs, and whether the design encourages participation by those with low incomes (e.g. stringency of reporting requirements, how individuals have to apply). The intermediate estimate assumed that participation would be just a bit over 50 percent and even then the ten year cost of a benefit would be $331 billion. A catastrophic benefit for higher income beneficiaries was also considered. The costs would vary greatly depending upon how the eligibility limit would be and on the rules regarding increasing the limit over time. (Published by the Kaiser Family Foundation; 2001 May.)
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