I have insurance through the company I work for but in a few years I will have to sign up for Medicare. My insurance, generic drugs are free but any name brand drugs have little to know discount. I have a couple of prescriptions for diabetes that have no generic equivalents, so until I meet my deductible each year my meds are about $2000.00 per month.
If I were to sign up for Medicare part D (which as I understand it is the prescription part) will Medicare pay for my prescriptions at a better discount than my work insurance? Can I combine them together?
Your post is a bit unclear in that you seem to be conflating your free generic drugs with “discounts” on brand name drugs. There are two forms of savings under medical insurance plans, 1) the plan paying a share of the costs, and 2) discounts that the plan negotiates with the providers.
In any event, you should be aware of a couple of facts, for starts:
[ul]
[li]Unlike ordinary Medicare, all Medicare Part D plans are offered by private insurance companies and subsidized by the government.[/li][li]Under the ACA, manufacturers of brand name drugs offer standard discounts on drugs in the “coverage gap”.[/li][li]Lower income people have a lower level of cost-sharing for Part D drugs.[/li][/ul]
PastTense has it. You can only know by looking at the formulary’s of various providers. Where you get the drugs also influences the cost. A non-preferred pharmacy is more expensive than a preferred one, and mail order from the insurer can be cheaper still. One pill I take was $60 for 3 months under my reasonably good employer coverage, it is now $6 mail order from my Plan D provider. YMMV quite a bit.