MINN. GOV. ISSUES EXECUTIVE ORDER TO CORRECT MEDICARE GLITCHES

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signed an emergency executive order this month authorizing the Minnesota Department of Human Services to help cover some costs for low-income residents struggling to get prescription drugs under a new Medicare plan, according to the Associated Press.

The emergency executive order was issued to allow the state to step in as the “last-resort payer” to cover out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for low income Minnesota residents that were having difficulty obtaining prescriptions under the new Medicare drug program.

Pawlenty said that the federal government should resolve the problems quickly, but in the meantime, “we will ensure impacted Minnesota residents receive help now.”

Many other state governments have addressed the glitch by taking short-term action to help many of the 6.2 million Medicare beneficiaries whose drug coverage was moved Jan. 1 from Medicaid to private insurance plans heavily subsidized by Medicare. Those residents eligible for drugs should have been charged a $1 to $3 for each prescription, but were told instead that they had to pay deductibles and co-pays many couldn’t afford.

The federal government attempted a smooth transition for beneficiaries, including 95,000 in Minnesota, by an automatic assignment in November to plans chosen at random. But starting Jan. 1, thousands of beneficiaries were told by their pharmacists that they weren’t on Medicare’s master list of people eligible for the nearly free drugs.