As shown in Table 1, the 4492 eligible survey
respondents were predominantly non-Hispanic
white, reflecting the population of western Washington.
Overall, 88% of respondents received care
in group-model, owned clinics of GHC. Having a
prescription benefit was associated with being older,
more educated, and more affluent. The finding for
age resulted from Group Health’s dropping the
availability of a prescription benefit for new, individual
Medicare + Choice enrollees in 1994. Additional
findings, not shown in Table 1, were that
respondents reported taking a median of four
chronic medications and had median out-of-pocket
expenditures for prescription medications during
the 2-year study period of $453 for persons with a
private benefit and $706 for those with no benefit.
Survey responses revealed that no more than 10
respondents had MediGap prescription coverage so
this category is not represented in our tables and
analyses