The Sacramento Bee has a good article which exposes a little detail which may be important to people who are thinking about signing up for Medicare Part D.  It turns out that people who are in managed care plans and sign up for a free standing drug plan with a different company may find their existing coverage terminated.  According to the Bee:

Seniors who are members of managed care health plans and then enroll in a drug plan offered by another organization could be dropped from their health plan, according to health plan and Medicare officials. Marketing campaigns for Medicare’s new prescription drug benefit plans are set to start Saturday. Advocates for seniors are worried that the benefits will be attractive enough to get seniors to sign up without first calling their HMOs.

From the managed care plan’s perspective, signing up for a drug plan offered by another managed care plan is seen as a decision to leave…

Oh. And Medicare Part D. marketing starts Saturday. 

Go read the article.

— Mr Jib