Medicare beneficiaries and drug coverage.

Whether or not to add a prescription drug benefit to the basic Medicare package is at the forefront of congressional debate. Using data from the 1996 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), we examine changes in drug insurance coverage levels from 1995 to 1996 and compare drug use and spending data for Medicare beneficiaries with and without drug coverage. The data show the enrollees without drug insurance consistently use fewer prescriptions, spend more out of pocket, and have less in total drug expenditures than their insured peers.