The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) added prescription drug coverage to Medicare (Medicare Part D), beginning on January 1, 2006. Medicare's elderly and disabled beneficiaries can enroll in private plans that contract with Medicare to provide the drug benefit. People on Medicare can obtain the Medicare drug benefit through two types of private plans. Beneficiaries can join a prescription drug plan (PDP) for drug coverage only and get their other Medicare benefits through the fee-for-service program, as the majority of people with Medicare currently do. Alternatively they can join a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan, such as an HMO or regional PPO, that covers drugs and all other Medicare benefits. Private plans can operate in one or more of 34 PDP regions and 26 MA regions nationwide.
For more information, visit Kaiser's Resources on the Medicare Drug Benefit, available at http://www.kff.org/medicare/rxdrugbenefit.cfm.

Please see http://www.kff.org/medicare/7986.cfm for data on American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Kaiser Family Foundation/Georgetown/NORC analysis of CMS PDP Landscape Source Files, 2006-2010. Available at: http://www.kff.org/medicare/7986.cfm.

PDPs: Prescription Drug Plans.

Benefit or Coverage Gap: Also called the "doughnut hole", this part of the Medicare drug benefit structure requires beneficiaries to pay 100% of their medication expenditures that fall between partial and catastrophic coverage. In 2006, the coverage gap begins when total spending for drugs reaches $2,250, exclusive of the beneficiary's monthly premium, and it ends when total spending for drugs reaches $5,100. The gap between partial and catastrophic coverage is projected to increase from $2,850 in 2006 to $4,984 in 2014.