If you're on Medicare, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson wants to make choosing a discount drug card easy.
Medicare now has 1,800 operators on call at its toll-free number (1-800-Medicare) to help seniors work their way through the six-dozen alternatives being offered. That's up from 400 Medicare operators in August.
Live in south Tampa and take Lipitor, Celebrex and Allegra?
Medicare operators as well as the Medicare Web site, www.medicare.gov) will tell you prices for those drugs under each of your card options. Callers just need to provide their Zip code, medicines and doses and pharmacy preferences.
One warning: You may spend a little time on hold. Medicare said it is getting 10 times its regular call volume as people try to enroll before the discount cards' June 1 starting date.
But Thompson promises to make the decisionmaking process painless.
"We'll do the work for them," he said in a recent press release.
And when have you heard a government official make an offer like that?
