Medicare Pharmacy Benefit Act of 2002

The Medicare Pharmacy Benefit Act of 2002 was a legislative proposal designed to expand Medicare coverage to include prescription drug benefits. If enacted, the bill would have established a program providing seniors with drug discounts, protection against high out-of-pocket "catastrophic" costs, and professional medication management services. For the average citizen, this would have meant the ability to enroll in a subsidized plan through private administrators to lower the daily cost of their prescriptions. While this specific bill did not become law, its core concepts contributed to the eventual creation of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit in 2003.