Oxygen Suppliers Fight to Keep a Medicare Boon
By CHARLES DUHIGG, New York Times
Medicare spends billions of dollars each year on products and services that are available at far lower prices.

There Are Alternatives: Insuring to Bridge the Gap or Opting Out
By STEPHANIE SAUL, New York Times
One way for Medicare Part D enrollees to deal with the “doughnut hole” is to insure themselves against it. Another way is to simply not get involved with Part D in the first place.

Strategies to Avoid Medicare’s Big Hole
By STEPHANIE SAUL, New York Times
A gap in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage is helping to curb growth in the nation’s drug spending by pushing people toward low-cost generic drugs.

Medicare Audits Show Problems in Private Plans
By ROBERT PEAR, New York Times
Tens of thousands of Medicare recipients have been victimized by private insurers that run the system’s new drug benefit program, according to a review of federal audits.

Medicare Premium Rise Lowest in 6 Years
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press
Elderly and disabled people will see their monthly Medicare premiums rise 3.1 percent next year to $96.40 – the lowest increase in six years.

Benefit Improvements for Low-Income Medicare Beneficiaries
Kaiser Family Foundation
The Kaiser Family Foundation has prepared a summary showing how the House-passed Children’s Health and Medicare Protection (CHAMP) Act legislation would change current law regarding assistance for low-income Medicare beneficiaries.

Audit Cites Overpaid Medicare Insurers
By ROBERT PEAR, New York Times
Private insurance companies participating in Medicare have been allowed to keep tens of millions of dollars that should have gone to consumers, and the Bush administration did not properly audit the companies or try to recover money paid in error, Congressional investigators say in a new report.

Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Progress Report: Findings from a 2006 National Survey of Seniors
Kaiser Family Foundation
The share of seniors without drug coverage dropped significantly under Medicare’s new drug benefit, according to this August 2007 Health Affairs Web Exclusive article based on a Kaiser Family Foundation, Commonwealth Fund and Tufts-New England Medical Center survey of more than 16,000 seniors.

Regional Differences in Costs and Care
New York Times Interactive
Track the variability of cost in the Medicare system and the rates of several kinds of surgery.

On Language: Doughnut Hole
By WILLIAM SAFIRE, New York Times
Medicare’s metaphor of controversy.