Medicare & prescriptions: Is buy now, pay later a good thing?

The Inflation Reduction Act allows Medicare subscribers to utilize a 12-month payment plan for prescription drugs. But is the "buy now, pay later" strategy necessarily a good thing for our healthcare system?

Silvur Technology Services CEO and retirement expert Rhian Horgan joined Robert 'Bob' Powell on Decoding Retirement to discuss the implications of the Inflation Reduction Act on the American healthcare system, what you need to know about the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period, and much more.

Inflation Reduction Act (decoded)

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, signed into law by President Biden on August 16, 2022, includes several provisions to lower prescription drug costs for people with Medicare and reduce drug spending by the federal government.

"I would describe it as a buy now, pay later. We go to Walmart (WMT), we go to Target (TGT), we can buy now, pay later most of the kind of consumer experiences we have today. And that is what the government has set up," Horgan explains. "The skeptic in me would say, well, what does that say about the American healthcare system? The fact that we need to buy now, pay later for prescription drugs says that something is fundamentally broken."

00:00 Speaker A

You mentioned the Inflation Reduction Act with the $2,000 cap. One thing about that is that folks who have the ability can go into a 12 month payment program for those drugs that are in that, at least within that range, is that correct?

00:15 Speaker B

Yeah, I would describe it as a buy now, pay later, right? We go to Walmart, we go to Target, we can buy now, pay later at kind of most of the kind of consumer experiences we have today. And that is what the government has set up. Um, on one hand, this is a positive, which is it allows folks that have kind of an acute illness that, you know, need a medicine for three months to spread the costs out over the course of the year. It's probably not, you're probably not going to use it if you're on like a monthly prescription, but something that you need for a short period of time, you can spread out. Um, the skeptic in me would say was, well, what does that say about the American healthcare system, right? The fact that we need a buy now, pay later for prescription drugs says that something is fundamentally broken.

01:18 Speaker A

Yeah. So one of the things I often think about is, with Social Security, it's a one and done decision. But with Medicare, this is sort of like the cruelest thing that we can do to older adults here in the United States is to make them look at their Annual Notice of Change each and every year, look at the plan finder each and every year and try to discern which plan is best for them at a time when their cognitive abilities may be declining and they're, uh, and there's a reluctance for them to switch because they're set in their ways.

02:06 Speaker B

Well, in theory, the Notice of Change is written at a third grade reading level. And I say in theory, because um, I think we all can remember the first time we logged on to the Medicare website or we logged on to Social Security and we all know how confusing that experience was and the amount of acronyms and, um, you know, those acronyms continue to change, right? It's like there's one set of acronyms when you started and they continue to evolve. Um, so, I think that's where again, for caregivers, this is where I just think about your mom and dad. Like, you may or may not be enrolled yourself in Medicare, but this is like the year you have to really make sure that your family members are being taken care of because they may have kind of trained themselves to not worry about this and just kind of put everything on autopilot. Um, and in particular this year is the year like not to let things go on autopilot.

Yahoo Finance's Decoding Retirement is hosted by Robert Powell, and produced by Zach Faulds.

Find more episodes of Decoding Retirement at http://goldberglawma.com/?id=videos/series/decoding-retirement.

Thoughts? Questions? Fan mail? Email us at yfpodcasts@yahooinc.com.

Editor's note: This post was written by Zach Faulds.

Learn more about Medicare from Decoding Retirement:

Tips for navigating the convoluted world of Medicare

Medicare Annual Enrollment Period: What you need to know