Mon, Sep 8, 2008 (2:09 a.m.)

A 2003 federal law enables private health insurance companies to contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to offer prescription drug plans to seniors. The companies are required to distribute certain types of marketing material so that consumers can understand the enrollment information, plan benefits and rules.

But an audit released Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General found that 85 percent of the marketing information failed to meet at least one Medicare guideline. Some handouts didn’t fully explain details of the drug plan. Others had footnotes that were printed too small.

Most of the documents failed to make it clear that seniors had a choice of pharmacies. Nearly half of the marketing packets did not let beneficiaries know how to obtain prescriptions if mail order service is delayed. Nearly one in five plans did not provide an alphabetical index of available drugs, making it difficult for consumers to find information about their medications.

All of this, of course, is absurd. Wading through health care plans is confusing enough. Private insurers certainly aren’t helping by distributing unclear and incomplete information.

It is no wonder Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said in a statement: “This report reveals a near-total failure by CMS, where officials have insisted that they can regulate the marketing of plans to seniors as well as or better than experienced state insurance agencies. The evidence now shows that’s not the case.”

The Medicare agency vows to take corrective action and Baucus said his committee will make sure “seniors get better service one way or the other.”

We would urge the agency to stop doing business with any private insurer that refuses to distribute clear marketing information. Seniors deserve to know exactly what they will get when they sign up for a drug plan. Making that information difficult to understand only adds to the confusion consumers already experience as they attempt to navigate the nation’s health care system.