Determing the correct plans for the different members of my family was my goal for the week.

I did go to the www.medicare.gov site and went through the find a plan link, put in all the medications and all the exact dosages, and it came up blank. Confused. I've used this site before and had great results, but that was before 11/15.

So, after fiddling with it, and it is logged down right now, I found the best way was to "find a formulary", put in all my meds, and it came back with 71 plans for one area that cover 13/13, 12/13, etc., and their rules. Surprise, you MUST use their network of pharmacies. So, it's really another glorified HMO type arrangement. HOW irritating, it's not like I don't fight to keep the prices down, now they want to send me to pharmacies that may be more expensive?

Anyway, the next steps, I've contacted Costco to see if they can share info on what networks they will be in. Now I need to pull up the "compare plans" on the medicare site and try to work through coverage. Almost everything is a medigap/medical plan, not an Rx plan, so we will have to evaluate the overall coverage versus costs for everything. GEEZ LOUISE.

But, still, made a bit of progress. Think this is all my patience will handle for one day.