The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Prescription drug prices vary widely at pharmacies, report shows

Consumers who don’t shop around for their prescription drugs may be paying significantly more.

Failing to comparison shop could result in overpaying by as much as $100 a month or even more, depending on the drug, Consumer Reports said in the May issue of the magazine.  

Consumer Reports compared drug prices for five top-selling drugs that have recently gone generic, including heart drugs Lipitor and Plavix. It found that Costco offered the lowest retail prices overall and CVS charged the highest. 

While consumers can find low drug prices at Costco, consumers may find a good deal too at their local independent pharmacies, Consumer Reports said.  

Consumer Reports’ secret shoppers called more than 200 pharmacies throughout the nation to get retail prices – what you would pay without insurance – on a month’s supply of five best-selling drugs that have recently become available as generics: 

• Actos, pioglitazone, for diabetes.

• Lexapro, escitalopram, an antidepressant.

• Lipitor, atorvastatin, for high cholesterol.

• Plavix, clopidogrel, a blood thinner.

• Singulair, montelukast, for asthma. 

The result? A difference of $749, or 447 percent, between the highest and lowest priced stores.

Some price comparisons

If you shop around, you could find a month’s supply of generic Lipitor at a cost of $17 at Costco. However, if you purchase it from CVS, you could pay $150. That’s a difference of $133. Rite Aid and Target were also pricey, the Consumer Reports’ shoppers found.

For the antidepressant Lexapro, a month’s supply of the generic version cost $7 at Costco and $126 at CVS. Rite Aid, grocery stores, and Walgreens also charged high prices on average, Consumer Reports found.

Generic Plavix, which is prescribed to people with cardiovascular disease, was also available at widely varying prices. For example, on the low end, a month’s supply was available at $12 through Healthwarehouse.com and $15 at Costco, while CVS quoted $180 when Consumer Reports’ secret shoppers asked about prices.

For the market basket of drugs Consumer Reports checked, independent and grocery store pharmacies’ prices varied widely between stores, sometimes offering the cheapest and the most expensive price for the same drug.

How to save

• Request the lowest price. Consumer Reports’ analysis shows that shoppers weren’t always given the best, lowest price. Make sure you ask.

• Go with generics. Generics are copies of brand-name medications whose patents have expired. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires that generics contain the same active ingredients in the same strength as the brands they copy. In addition, a generic must be “bioequivalent” to its corresponding brand, meaning that it delivers the same amount of active ingredients into a person’s bloodstream in the same amount of time as the original brand. 

• Leave the city and shop in rural areas. Consumer Reports found that some grocery-store and independent drugstores had higher prices in urban areas than rural areas. For example, Consumer Reports shoppers priced a 30-day supply of generic Actos at a pharmacy in Raleigh, N.C., for $203, while another pharmacy in a rural area of the state sold it for $37. 

• Get a refill for 90 days, not 30 days. Most pharmacies offer discounts on a three-month supply.

• Look for additional discounts. All chain and big-box drugstores now offer discount generic-drug programs, with some selling hundreds of generic drugs for $4 a month or $10 for a three-month supply. Just make sure your drug is on the list. Offers vary and check the fine print.

The report is available where magazines are sold, in libraries, and online at www.ConsumerReports.org. 

Copyright 2013, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Report describes how Big Soda uses ‘philanthropy’ to gain supporters, silence criticism

The state chapter of the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation unexpectedly joined Big Soda's legal fight against New York City’s Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to cap soda servings at restaurants at 16 ounces.

Both groups received grants from Coca-Cola, with the national NAACP receiving at least $2.1 million from the soda company since 1986, including $100,000 as recently as December. The Hispanic Federation also lists Coke as a donor.

In addition to courting civil rights or minority groups, the soda industry, over the years, has given money to – and cultivated relationships with – groups representing doctors, dentists, dietitians, anti-hunger advocates, and others.

 A report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, called Selfish Giving, shows that when Big Soda is under siege, as it was in 2009 when defending against a possible national soda tax to pay for health care reform, it can call on its nationwide network of organizations that have received grants to leap to its defense.

The soda industry organized groups to oppose a 2008 soda tax proposal in New York State and two 2012 soda-tax ballot initiatives in the California cities of Richmond and El Monte. All of the tax proposals were defeated.

"Big Soda's giving isn't solely motivated by its love for the arts or its concern for minorities' or anyone else's health," Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the center, said in a statement. "Makers of sugar drinks give to burnish their soiled reputations. They give so they can soften, or even silence, potential criticism. But mainly the industry gives so when provoked it can activate an instant Astroturf army to advance its extreme, anti-health agenda."

The soda industry also is forging financial partnerships with city governments, which can have the effect of silencing municipal leaders' criticism of sugar drinks, according to the report. Last year, Miami Beach, Dayton, Ohio, and Ocean City, Md. all signed deals making Coke the "official soft drink" of those cities.

And while some cities were aggressively proposing taxes or prohibiting sugar drinks in public facilities, the American Beverage Association partnered with the cities of Chicago and San Antonio on a wellness contest centered on another favorite industry theme: personal responsibility over government intervention.

The soda industry's philanthropic focus on African American and Latino organizations is particularly troubling because those communities suffer disproportionately from obesity and soda-related diseases, Jacobson said.

The soda industry's coopting of nonprofit groups is like the tobacco industry's tactics in the 1980s and 1990s, when it enlisted minority groups that received grants to oppose curbs on smoking or tobacco advertising, he said. The New York state chapter of the NAACP, for example, worked with the tobacco industry to oppose separate non-smoking areas in restaurants and other public facilities.

"The industry playbook is clear – make philanthropic donations to divide and conquer the very constituencies these policies would ultimately benefit," said Anthony Iton, M.D., senior vice president of The California Endowment, a health-oriented foundation. "Big Soda has learned well from Big Tobacco. But, as more Americans start to see through their cynical tactics, public opinion will shift to protect children, not profits."

Copyright 2013, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Savings survey shows only half of Americans are saving regularly and are prepared for retirement

The sixth annual national survey assessing household saving, released today as part of America Saves Week, shows that only about half of Americans reported good savings habits.

• 54 percent said they “have a savings plan with specific goals.”

• 43 percent said they “have a spending plan that allows you to save enough money to achieve the goals of your saving plan.”

• 50 percent of those not retired said they “save for retirement at work through a 401(k) or other contributory plan.”

• 41 percent said that, “outside of work,” they “save automatically through regular preauthorized transfers from checking to savings or investments.”

• 49 percent know their net worth.

While nearly two-thirds of respondents, 65 percent, reported they “have sufficient emergency savings to pay for unexpected expenses such as car repairs or a doctor visit,” only 49 percent of the non-retired said they’re “saving enough for a retirement in which you will have a desirable standard of living.”

More than half of baby boomers and Generation X will be able to retire with enough money to cover the cost of basic retirement needs as well as uninsured health care costs, but a significant number are at risk of running short of money in retirement, according to the EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model.

The survey also revealed no improvement in the reported financial condition of families over the past year. 

From 2010 to 2012, key savings indicators steadily declined. Between February 2012 and February 2013, there was no improvement in the following indicators – spending less than income and saving the difference, 66 percent in 2012 and 65 percent in 2013; having sufficient emergency savings, 66 percent and 65 percent; and among the non-retired, saving enough for retirement, 51 percent and 49 percent.

“The recession still has not ended for millions of American families,” Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America and a founder of America Saves, said in a statement. “Many working families are still suffering from high unemployment rates, stagnant incomes, and a housing market that is just beginning to recover.”

The survey was released the first day of America Saves Week, an annual event where government, business, and non-profit organizations at the national, state, and local levels work together to promote saving money. 

America Saves, managed by the federation, and the American Savings Education Council, managed by EBRI, coordinate this annual effort. These organizations commissioned the survey, undertaken by Opinion Research Corp International in early February.

More than 1,300 national, state, and local organizations are participating in the 7^th Annual America Saves Week to encourage and assist personal saving.

Among them are the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Fidelity, Department of Defense, BB&T, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Utah Saves.

Copyright 2013, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

State of the Union offers much for consumers, but is lacking on housing and benefits for older Americans

President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday was strong for consumers in many areas.

Obama's emphasis on immigration reform, family wage jobs, early childhood education, a $9 minimum wage, tax code reform, voter rights, and loophole reduction will help move America forward.

The actions he called for on gun violence, energy independence, clean energy, climate change, infrastructure, higher education, violence against women, equal pay for women, stronger families, poverty eradication, and equal benefits for all are of tremendous importance.

However, Obama fell short in his address on benefits for older Americans and housing.

Benefits for older Americans

He began his talk by saying, “It is our unfinished task to make sure that this government works on behalf of the many, and not just the few.”

Americans don’t expect Congress to agree on everything, Obama said, adding “They do expect us to forge reasonable compromise where we can.

On balancing the budget, he said:

The biggest driver of our long-term debt is the rising cost of health care for an aging population. And those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare must embrace the need for modest reforms – otherwise, our retirement programs will crowd out the investments we need for our children, and jeopardize the promise of a secure retirement for future generations…

We’ll reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies and ask more from the wealthiest seniors. We’ll bring down costs by changing the way our government pays for Medicare, because our medical bills shouldn’t be based on the number of tests ordered or days spent in the hospital – they should be based on the quality of care that our seniors receive.

And I am open to additional reforms from both parties, so long as they don’t violate the guarantee of a secure retirement. Our government shouldn’t make promises we cannot keep – but we must keep the promises we’ve already made.

I’m concerned that Medicare is “on the table” and will be cut in a compromise deal. Medicare and Social Security are minimal programs. Even “modest reforms” will have disastrous effects on seniors.

For more than half of Social Security recipients aged 65 or over, the program provides more than 50 percent of their family income and, because of its lifetime income protection and survivors benefits, Social Security is particularly important for elderly women.

Housing

On housing, Obama said the housing market is finally healing from the collapse of 2007. But, even with mortgage rates near a 50-year low, too many families with solid credit who want to buy a home are being rejected, he said, adding:

Right now, there’s a bill in this Congress that would give every responsible homeowner in America the chance to save $3,000 a year by refinancing at today’s rates. Democrats and Republicans have supported it before. What are we waiting for? Take a vote, and send me that bill.

And Obama said:

Right now, overlapping regulations keep responsible young families from buying their first home. What’s holding us back? Let’s streamline the process, and help our economy grow.

What’s needed that the president didn’t address is that banks aren’t willing to refinance homes for consumers who are underwater. And, mortgage reform is still needed and consumers who are in danger of foreclosure must receive help.

Banks continue to prefer to kick homeowners out of their homes if they are behind on their payments. Federal programs that have been set up are only helping a fraction of those who need assistance.

And the comment about overlapping regulations for first time homeowners? It sounds like the president was throwing a bone to the housing and real estate industries.

We just had a Great Recession based at least partially on banks and other financial institutions selling mortgages to anyone, regardless of their qualifications.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other federal agencies have been working on rules to curb these mortgage abuses. Most of them will go into effect early in 2014.

Certainly the president didn’t mean those rules are going to be eliminated?

More help is needed for homeowners. This is part of the assistance for Main Street that has never materialized after Wall Street was bailed out.

In last year’s State of the Union address, Obama announced the creation of a working group aimed at exposing and prosecuting financial fraud behind the housing crisis.

While some action has been taken, the group needs to do more to charge and convict those responsible for the housing crisis.

Copyright 2013, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Retirement tips: What you need to do before you retire

Preparing for retirement means saying goodbye not only to your co-workers and a steady paycheck, but also to employer-provided benefits such as health insurance and a 401(k) match.

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance outlines four steps to take before you retire to get what you need for this new stage of your life.

• Time it right – Companies use various timetables to match employee 401(k) contributions; don’t leave before the last check is written. Also find out the rules for cashing out paid leave.

• Line up insurance – Fewer than 10 percent of private employers offer retiree health coverage so be sure to check out your options including extending your regular employer health coverage or finding cheaper individual insurance. If it’s offered, be sure to sign up health coverage. If you retire before age 65, you can extend your regular employer health coverage through COBRA. You'll pay the full premium.

• Apply for your pension – Five months before you retire, ask for an application and statement that shows your benefit calculation and payout options. Your employer may give you a choice between a lump-sum payout and an annuity. With an annuity, you get lifetime income. With the lump sum, you can invest the money as you choose, but you’ll also have the challenge of making it last as long as you do.

• Position your retirement fund – Weigh the benefits of either staying with your 401(k) or rolling it into an IRA. The IRA gives you more investment freedom, but the investment options inside your employer 401(k) are often cheaper than what you could buy on your own. While you're deciding where to put your savings, track down 401(k)s from previous employers. Consolidating them into a single IRA could reduce expenses and make it easier to manage your investments.

In addition to the four steps recommended by Kiplinger, you’ll also need to figure out when to apply for Social Security and when to start receiving benefits. One website to help you is the Social Security Administration’s Retirement Planner: When to Start Your Benefits. Do other research as well because it's a complicated topic that will significantly affect most consumers' retirement income.

For more information on Kiplinger's four suggestions, visit: http://www.kiplinger.com/article/retirement/T047-C000-S002-countdown-to-retirement-plan-your-exit-strategy.html.

Copyright 2013, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Fiscal cliff deal largely disappointing for consumers

Despite the significant hype, I wasn’t very worried that Congress and the president wouldn’t reach a deal on the so called fiscal cliff. What I was concerned about was how the deal would affect consumers, particularly older Americans.

The fiscal cliff deal has a number of items that will benefit consumers. They include:

• All income below $450,000 for families and $400,000 for individuals will permanently be taxed at Bush-era rates.

• The 2009 expansion of tax breaks for low-income Americans – the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit – will be extended for five years.

• Federal unemployment insurance will be extended for another year, benefiting those unemployed for longer than 26 weeks.

• The Alternative Minimum Tax will be permanently patched to avoid raising taxes on the middle-class.

• Medicare and Social Security weren’t slashed.

However, Congress missed a big opportunity to truly pass positive measures to help consumers with these missteps:

• The deal doesn’t address the debt-ceiling.

• The payroll tax holiday will be allowed to expire, which means taxes will go up for consumers.

• A full package of temporary business tax breaks will be extended for another year, including breaks for race-car track owners, electric scooters, Goldman Sachs office space, coal produced on Indian lands, and Hollywood films. 

• Funding is cut for the Affordable Care Act’s consumer oriented and operated plans – non-profit, customer-owned and operated plans that could test out new ways to deliver health care – by about $1.9 billion.

• The sequester will be delayed for two months. Half of the delay will be offset by discretionary cuts, split between defense and non-defense. The other half will be offset by revenue raised by the voluntary transfer of traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs, which would tax retirement savings when they’re moved over.
  

The upcoming budget cuts required by the fiscal cliff deal will be part of discussions on the budget on Capitol Hill, and no one knows what agencies and programs they’ll affect. That’s a problem for consumers because vital programs may be slashed, especially with heavy lobbying from the military industrial complex not to cut military spending.

Even though the Democrats won big in November, Congress is gridlocked due to faulty policies supported by Republicans, the conservative media, including Fox News, and American corporations. It’s frustrating when so much needs to be done in this country, but special interest groups squash progress and the ability of the government to move forward positively.

Instead of adequately funding needed programs for consumers, Congress will be bogged down with what to cut, then we’ll have another fiscal cliff debate and – oh, yes – another debt ceiling debacle.

Copyright 2013, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Sugar addiction, Medicare, Social Security, charities, grandchildren, and divorce are topics for this week’s Blogging Boomer Carnival

Katie Foster of Arabian Tales and Other Amazing Adventures is the host for Blogging Boomer Carnival #291.

For this after Christmas carnival, SoBabyBoomer offers a special holiday gift, the Midlife Crisis Queen discusses holiday sugar addiction and resulting obesity, and Tom Sightings is wondering who’s going to pay for our Medicare and Social Security.

In addition, The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide provides helpful tools to research charities and Life After Married’s Sara Cornwell compares the demise of a long-term relationship with an impending car crash. And, Arabian Tales’ Katie Foster departs from her Arabian adventures to recount a New York City adventure with her granddaughter in “Making Memories, A Grandmother’s Gift.”

Be sure to stop by again next week to see what our baby boomer bloggers are writing about.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

The election, health care, personal growth, and the end of the world are the topics for this week’s Blogging Boomer Carnival

This week, I’m the host for Blogging Boomer Carnival #289.

The carnival is a collection of like-minded blogs cooperating to share their best stories of interest to the Baby Boomer Generation.

As the holidays approach, boomer bloggers have a lot on their minds.

Tom Sightings, on Sightings at 60 has a new feature, The Friday Front , in which he reports on an item from the past week that caught his attention – and might catch yours. This week Tom notes that one result of the election is that a record number of women will be heading to Washington as members of the U. S. Congress. He offers a brief survey of a few of the new women senators, from Massachusetts to Hawaii.

With the end of the world apparently at hand, Laura Lee Carter, the Midlife Crisis Queen, offers this assessment: The End is Near!

On my blog this week, I wrote about how the Affordable Care Act has saved consumers $1.5 billion last year due to its requirement that health insurers spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on health care or quality improvement activities. However, stronger rules may be needed to ensure more savings are passed on to consumers, the authors of a Commonwealth Fund report said.

John Agno on SoBabyBoomer is giving away the new ebook “Ask the Coach” as a holiday gift on Dec. 10 and 11 only at Amazon.com. It can be downloaded on a smartphone (with a Kindle app), an eReader, a tablet, or a computer. John says that “Ask the Coach” is a reference book; like a dictionary or any other resource book that isn’t meant to be read cover to cover. Readers can look up a question of interest in the Table of Contents and then read that self-coaching answer in the book.

Katie Foster of the Arabian Tales and Other Amazing Adventures is traveling, so we’ll catch up with her later.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Affordable Care Act saved consumers $1.5 billion last year, but stronger rules may be needed to get more savings passed on to consumers

Consumers saw nearly $1.5 billion in insurer rebates and overhead cost savings in 2011, due to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that health insurers spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on health care or quality improvement activities, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. If health insurers don’t follow the rule, they must pay a rebate to their customers.

Consumers with individual policies saw reduced premiums when insurers reduced both administrative costs and profits to meet the new standards, Michael McCue of Virginia Commonwealth University and Mark Hall of Wake Forest University, authors of the report, said. While insurers in the small- and large-group markets achieved lower administrative costs, not all of these savings were passed on to employers and consumers, as many insurers increased profits in these markets.

“The medical loss ratio requirements are intended to give insurers an incentive to be more efficient and use most of their premium dollars for patient care,” Sara Collins, Commonwealth Fund vice president for affordable health insurance, said in a statement.

“This report is encouraging, as it demonstrates that these new rules are improving value for people buying health insurance on their own, which has traditionally been very challenging,” Collins said. “However, it will be crucial to monitor insurers’ responses to this regulation over time to ensure that all purchasers and consumers benefit from the savings the law is designed to encourage.”

The report looks at how insurers selling policies for individuals, small-employer groups, and large-employer groups in every state reacted to the Affordable Care Act’s medical loss ratio requirement in 2011, the first year the rule was in place. Small-employer groups have up to 100 workers, while large-employer groups have more than 50 or 100 workers, depending on the state.

Individual policies

The authors found that in the individual insurance market improvements were widespread: 39 states saw administrative costs drop, 37 states saw medical loss ratios improve, and 34 states saw reductions in operating profits.

Some states had significant improvements. In New Mexico, Missouri, West Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina, medical loss ratios improved 10 percent or more, while administrative costs dropped $99 or more per member in Delaware, Ohio, Louisiana, South Carolina, and New York.

However, the report finds that in small- and large-group markets, medical loss ratios were largely unchanged, and while spending on administrative costs dropped, profits increased.

Small- and large-group policies

For example, in the small-group market, administrative costs were reduced by $190 million, profits increased by $226 million, and the medical loss ratio remained at 83 percent, unchanged from 2010. In the large-group market, insurers reduced administrative costs by $785 million, increased profits by $959 million, and kept their medical loss ratio at 89 percent, also unchanged from 2010.

Insurers in the individual market have a less stringent medical loss ratio requirement – 80 percent compared to 85 percent in the large-group market – but their higher overhead costs and lower medical loss ratios mean they have to work harder to reach the new standard, the authors of the report said. As a result, these insurers lowered both administrative costs and profit margins, which reduced the cost of premiums.

On the other hand, insurers in the small- and large-group markets already have medical loss ratios in the range of the required 85 percent, so while they reduced administrative costs, they had the option of turning those cost savings into profits instead of passing them along to consumers.

Insurers may have taken profit increases in the small- and large-group markets to offset the reduced profits in the individual market, the authors said. Many insurers sell policies in all three markets, so any reduction in administrative costs could have been spread across all three markets.

Possible stronger rules

The authors conclude that stronger measures – such as rate regulation, tighter loss ratio rules, or enhanced competitive pressures – may be needed to ensure that administrative costs are reduced in all markets and savings are passed along to consumers.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist

Insurance company gives refunds for wrongly denied claims

Make sure your insurance company handles your deductibles correctly.

After consumers complained about their deductibles not being calculated accurately, the New York State Attorney General’s Office launched an investigation of Excellus Bluecross Blueshield.

Excellus has agreed to refund plan members who overpaid health care providers as a result of Excellus's improper accounting of deductibles.

The settlement also requires Excellus to properly account for members' deductible and out-of-pocket expenses to prevent similar denials of claims in the future, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said today in a statement.

The company has made payments totaling about $3.1 million to consumers and providers.  

After Excellus wrongly denied claims, providers either billed the customers for the cost of the services or absorbed the loss themselves. Excellus reported that the accounting errors – which affected 12,000 customers – were the result of a technology glitch after its software was modified.

Copyright 2012, Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist