The good news for the millions of seniors who signed up for Part D prescription drug coverage under Medicare is that they have between Nov. 15 and Dec. 31 to shop around for a better deal from insurers. The bad news is the same as the good news, but outweighs it because seniors who thought, naively, that the ordeal when they enrolled initially in Part D was behind them, will discover deja-vu all over again. Sort of like a horror movie with annual sequels because the option to switch plans has to be screened year after year, forever. The complexity of Part D, coupled with the way seniors are targeted with sales pitches, means the press has its work cut out for it to help readers make heads or tails of the system and their choices.

The simplest solution is to do nothing and allow current coverage to renew automatically. But with virtually everything about Part D in flux – the premiums (my wife’s is due to jump 36%), changes in prescribed meds and in formularies, a higher deductible, a revised coverage gap or doughnut hole, and so on – simply standing pat is not a sensible option.

When I inquired, I found that 53 stand-alone Part D plans are available in my locale. I tried twice to sort them out on the Medicare Web site before throwing in the towel and turning for help to two knowledgeable and helpful volunteer counselors with Iowa’s insurance department. I left an hour and a half session with a printout that appeared to show we could save nearly $600 a year by switching my wife’s coverage to another company.

We had never heard of the company, which is headquartered in Utah, and when I phoned with a question, the customer-service representative was located in Georgia. We have no idea what it would be like to do business with this new company; after two weeks, it still hasn’t supplied us with an application. So there go several more weeks of inquiries and pondering.

I joked once that the worst experiences of my life were World War II and our daughter’s dance recital. Dealing with Part D has now joined the list.

My wife and I are in our eighties. We vote, support worthy causes, maintain our property and are considerate of our neighbors, their children and their dogs. So why is our government doing this to us?

We wonder at times if we should just chuck Part D and simply pay all of our prescription bills out of our own pocket, as we do much of the time now anyway what with the deductible and doughnut hole. Freed of the Part D hassle, we could spend our limited remaining time more pleasurably than poring over formularies, brochures and computer printouts. When I broached quitting part D to my volunteer counselors, they talked me out of it, primarily because, they pointed out, it provides real, if modest, savings and no one knows what our future medical needs will be.

It has never occurred to us to drop Medicare Parts A or B, the coverage for hospital and physician services we have had for years, because they seem to be designed to serve the interests primarily of patients. By all accounts, Part D was written with heavy input from pharmaceutical and insurance company lobbyists – and it shows. Why else does the Part D law prohibit the government from negotiating prices with drug manufacturers, as it does when it buys for the Veterans Administration and Medicaid? And why did Part D architects contract with a Rube Goldberg clone to contruct a contraption with multiple and ever-changing tiers, options and assorted other pitfalls that baffle even the folks who are supposed to provide advice?

Drug manufacturers are reported to be making record profits, due in good part to the windfall from Part D. The next Congress needs to go back to the drawing board and, with seniors uppermost in mind, create a Medicare plan to replace the nightmare for them that is Part D.

With so much money at stake, it will be a bruising battle that the press has an obligation to cover aggressively and in depth.