Medicare News You Can Use

Yesterday was a momentous occasion in the lives of many American seniors – meaning it marked the beginning of a big pain in the keister: the first day they could begin to sign up for the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, which is slated to begin in January. As such, the networks have been reporting on how seniors are responding to the enrollment process so far. Each script begins, inevitably, with a disgruntled senior.

On the CBS "Evening News" Tuesday, Sharyn Alfonsi spoke with frustrated senior, Shirley Schooley:

MS. SCHOOLEY: It's terrible. And I think all they're doing is confusing senior citizens.

EDWARD McCRUM: I don't know how much we are going to save on this program. I really don't.

HOPE McCRUM: On a scale of frustration of one to ten, I'd say it's ten.

REID: So what's the biggest problem?

Unidentified Woman: There are so many choices, that's it.

Unidentified Man #1: Yeah, that's what the problem is. There's just so many choices.

But while all the segments focused on the frustration among seniors, only Lisa Stark's piece on Tuesday's "World News Tonight," actually mapped out information for seniors from experts with specific advice about how to navigate the new program, rather than simply delineating their frustration with it. While everyone enjoys a little reinforcement now and then, I can sort of imagine my grandmother yelling at the television: "Tell me something I don't know!" It seems that it would be more useful to those who are actually affected by the benefit not to merely affirm the frustration they have likely already experienced themselves, but to provide information about how they might best approach those difficulties. To their credit, the morning news programs -- which are generally structured with a "news you can use" mentality -- seemed to do just that, featuring segments with consumer affairs contributors and other experts who dispensed advice on how seniors should approach the new plan.

Certainly, the irony of trying to explain all the intricacies of an issue that appears to be defined by its complexity in a two-minute evening newscast segment is obvious, and the evening newscasts did a fine job of explaining the program and its complications given that time constraint. And as the enrollment period continues (through May 15) the broadcasts will surely be revisiting the topic in the coming months (at least Bob Schieffer said so during the broadcast last night). But nearly all the broadcasts noted that one of the biggest roadblocks for seniors in obtaining information about the new drug benefit is that it is most quickly accessible on the Internet – and nearly 75% of seniors have never been online. So, while many younger news consumers gravitate away from television and toward the Internet, it seems that television news -- the evening newscasts in particular, whose audience skews toward the Medicare-eligible set -- may be one of the primary outlets upon which seniors will depend for information about the new program, rendering their coverage of it all the more valuable.