Print this page
Email a friendDigging Out Of The Donut Hole
Newspaper Columns, Pharmacy Q&A August 31, 2007
Q. I am about to fall into the Medicare Part D “donut hole” and would like to buy my drugs from Canada to save money for the remainder of this year. How do I know which online pharmacy to select?
A. Many senior citizens who signed up for the prescription drug benefit from Medicare are shocked when they hit the so-called donut hole. When drug expenses come to a total of $2400, patients must pay 100 percent of their medication bill. If drug expenses eventually exceed $5,451, Part D kicks in again with catastrophic coverage until the end of the year.
If you don’t think your drug expenses will get that high, you may want to consider purchasing your medicines from Canada. (These do not qualify to get you out of the donut hole, though.) Be sure that you are shopping from a legitimate Canadian online pharmacy. Fraudulent pharmacies may be doing business from other countries without the quality control we expect from Canada.
To help you evaluate your options we are sending you our Guide to Saving Money on Medicine with guidelines for buying medicines from Canada and pros and cons of generic drugs.
Joe Graedon is a pharmacologist. Teresa Graedon holds a doctorate in medical anthropology and is a nutrition expert. Their syndicated radio show can be heard on public radio. In their column, Joe and Teresa Graedon answer letters from readers. Write to them in care of this newspaper or e-mail them via their Web site: www.PeoplesPharmacy.com.
© 2007 King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Reader Comments
When I fell into the donut hole in August of last year,
I was angry to have been tricked by Medicare and worried that I couldn't afford medications I depend on. Happily, I found ADC in
India where one of my prescriptions was filled for
$9.82/month ($135 in US) and
another for $6.75/month ($115
in US). These are listed as
generics and carry a slightly
different name from the US products but are equally effective. Thus, US Big Pharma's claim that generics
for many drugs don't exist is
false and allows for
continuation of super-inflated
prices on many US meds. I will
be happy to supply the email
address of ADC to anyone who
is nearing the donut hole.
[Editor's note: Verifying the quality of generic products from India could be tricky. We worry quite a lot about quality control. Check out our Generic Drug Problem box on the home page to read some scary stories.}
Posted by: Ann | August 31, 2007 9:51 AM
several months ago i was told by two different canadian pharmacies that they are now obtaining some medicines from India. In that way they said that they can get medicines that they could formerly not get because of legal protections of the medicine manufacturers of the U S and Canada. That somewhat makes me nervous about the quality issues. By the way, my wife has been using the Canadian equivalent of prempro for several years at a huge cost savings. A best as we can tell , it has been fine for her.
Posted by: SW | August 31, 2007 12:10 PM