TUESDAY, Nov. 8 (HealthDay News) — Despite concerns that the complex offerings under Medicare Part D prescription drug plans would confuse older Americans, a new study finds seniors are able to figure out which plan costs them the least.
The researchers found evidence that seniors — possibly with the help of family members — quickly adapted and made changes as necessary.
The findings may ease concerns among some experts about elderly people’s ability to understand complicated drug insurance products and select the least expensive, according to the University of Texas at Austin researchers.
They analyzed data from more than 71,000 people who were enrolled in stand-alone prescription drug plans provided or administered by CVS Caremark in 2006 and 2007 and who did not receive a federal low-income subsidy in either year.
From 2006 to 2007, 81 percent of the people in the study lowered their “overspending” by an average of $298 — 55 percent of the 2006 level.
The oldest people and those beginning to take Alzheimer’s medications had higher-than-average reductions in overspending, suggesting that family members and others help them choose plans, the researchers said.
“Having a multitude of options to choose from is economically efficient because we are all different and have different needs,” Eugenio Miravete, an associate professor of economics, said in a university news release.
Medicare Part D plans can have different premiums, co-pays and formularies (a list of covered drugs), according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
“Restricting choices reduces the ability of firms to target individuals with specific needs, and it is not efficient that we all insure against unlikely risks. Medicare Part D is a successful implementation of a market-based approach to deliver a large-scale entitlement program.”
The drug plans are popular with beneficiaries, according to the researchers.
The study will be published in the journal American Economic Review.
More information
The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about Medicare Part D.
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ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2011) ? Neurons in the prefrontal cortex of individuals with autism show changes at numerous sites across the genome, according to a study being published Online First by the Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Autism spectrum disorders are a group of complex illnesses with different causes and origins. Neuronal dysfunction in the cerebral cortex and other regions of the brain could contribute to the cognitive and behavioral defects in autism, according to background information in the article. Neurons are nerve cells that send and receive electrical signals within the body.
Hennady P. Shulha, Ph.D., of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Mass., and colleagues examined the postmortem brain tissue of 16 individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (average age 17.4 years; range 2 to 60 years) and 16 controls without autism (ranging in age from less than one year to 70 years). The tissue was obtained through the Autism Tissue Program.
The study searched, on a genome-wide scale, for genes that show an abnormal epigenetic signature — specifically histone methylation. Histones are small proteins attached to the DNA that control gene expression and activity. While genetic information is encoded by the (genome’s) DNA sequence, methylation and other types of histone modifications regulate genome organization and gene expression. The study found hundreds of loci (the places genes occupy on chromosomes) across the genome affected by altered histone methylation in the brains of autistic individuals. However, only a small percentage — less than 10 percent — of the affected genes were affected by DNA mutations. It remains to be determined whether or not genetic changes elsewhere in the genome contributed to the observed epigenetic changes, or whether non-genetic factors were responsible for the disease process in some of the affected individuals.
“Prefrontal cortex neurons from subjects with autism show changes in chromatin (the substance of chromosomes) structures at hundreds of loci genome-wide, revealing considerable overlap between genetic and epigenetic risk maps of developmental brain disorders,” the authors conclude.
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