Published January, 2016

Health Care Reform and Medicare: Closing the Doughnut Hole, Medicare Rights Center (2016)

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 closed the Part D "doughnut hole"—the gap in drug coverage during which people with Medicare must pay the full cost of their prescriptions out of pocket. Health care reform phases out the doughnut hole by decreasing the consumer's share of drug costs during the doughnut hole until it reaches 25 percent in 2020 for both brand-name and generic drugs. However, the phase-out works differently for brand-name and generic drugs. These charts illustrate how much the consumer will pay for both brand-name and generic drugs through 2020, when the phase-out of the doughnut hole will be complete.