System requires Internet savvy

Plan Finder is meant to simplify things but is unlikely to help most seniors.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WASHINGTON -- The new Medicare prescription drug plan that goes into operation in January is one of the most complicated federal benefits ever devised, and senior citizens by the tens of thousands have been shying away from signing up. But not to worry, federal officials say, they've developed a new system called Plan Finder to make everything simpler -- a kind of magic decoder ring to melt away the confusion and help seniors save money.
There's just one catch: The new system is designed for people who have no problem getting onto the Internet via computer -- something fewer than one-third of all elderly Americans have ever done.
Complex
If navigating the Internet is not challenge enough, those who get to the Medicare.gov Web site must type and mouse-click their way through screen after screen of questions, boxes to check, options and choices.
They must feed in personal information about themselves, the drugs they take, and the pharmacy they use. Only then will they get a personalized list of available plans, with their main characteristics spelled out and their costs ranked from lowest to highest. That, experts agree, is where the real comparison shopping should begin.
To computer wizards, or the Xbox Generation grandchildren of today's senior citizens, all this would be child's play. "It's neat -- it's well done," said 35-year-old Susannah Fox, associate director of the Pew Internet & amp; American Life Project.
Inaccessible for many
But the aging, computer-challenged customers Plan Finder is intended to help might disagree. "For someone who is computer savvy, I would probably give [Plan Finder] a 'B,"' said Marlene Eskin of Austin, Texas, who is 70 and works as a marketing consultant. "For the audience they are directing it to, the majority of whom may not even have a computer, I would give it a 'D.' I think that's the group it needs to work for."
At one level, it might seem all too predictable that the government, which many Americans consider the leading producer of red tape, proposes to deal with the red tape of the prescription drug plan with an online "Help" system that is the dot-com equivalent of more red tape.
But there's nothing funny about the potential consequences. The Medicare prescription benefit is a small but pioneering step toward helping large numbers of Americans cope with the ever-increasing cost of health care. It is also one of the proudest domestic policy achievements of the Bush presidency. Yet the complexities of the plan have discouraged so many senior citizens from signing up thus far that the success of the overall plan is in doubt.
If Plan Finder or something like it does not change that situation, the result could be a major setback in the quest for improved health care.
And the problems with Plan Finder seem to range from its technical difficulties to cultural disconnects between its designers, who are comfortable with the conventions of the online world, and its intended users, who frequently are not.
Muriel Bennett, for example, is a retired small-business owner from New York who uses the Internet to look up book and theater reviews and to research medical topics. But the prospect of plugging private information such as her Social Security number into Plan Finder leaves her cold.
"I don't like putting any personal information in," said Bennett, who is in her 80s. "I have never put in my credit card number. And I'd sooner put my credit card number in than my Social Security number."