For nearly 60 years, Medicare has helped pay for medical care for Americans over the age of 65, as well as younger Americans with certain medical needs. Medicare has many different programs, but medicines are covered by two of them—Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D. Part D provides coverage for medicines at retail or mail order pharmacies. Part B covers medications administered by a physician, like injected or infused chemotherapy medications, in locations such as hospital outpatient departments, physician offices, patients’ homes and dialysis centers.

Medicare is administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which also includes CMMI, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. CMMI was established to test new models for paying for and delivering health care in the Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP programs, such as bundled payments, patient-centered medical homes and accountable care organizations.

While there are many ways Medicare works well, today seniors and people with disabilities are increasingly facing higher out-of-pocket costs for the medicines they need. We must modernize Medicare to make it work even better for seniors and people with disabilities. Read more about our commonsense, patient-centered reforms here.