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Up to 1 million people on Medicare have not had enough time to review their options for prescription-drug coverage in 2007, so the government will give them an extra six weeks to decide, officials said Wednesday.

The rest of the 43 million Americans eligible for Part D got their information packets on time and still have until midnight Sunday to decide what coverage they want next year.

Those who now have until Feb. 14 are people who have had Medicare Part D coverage this year and whose plans missed the Oct. 31 deadline for mailing information to them about changes in coverage next year.

They include about 200,000 with UnitedHealth, the company that owns PacifiCare's Secure Horizons — one of the largest Medicare providers in Arizona.

In Tucson, they include Victor Daub, who received his first mailing from Secure Horizons more than a month late, in early December.

"It was preceded by a phone call around Nov. 15 saying 'It's on its way, so not to worry.' So I knew right away it was going to be late," Daub said Wednesday.

The cover letter, dated late October, said the packet Daub was holding in his hands included a 2007 formulary — a list of prescription drugs covered by the plan. The formulary was not only missing from the packet, Daub said, it didn't arrive until the third week in December.

Daub said he plans to stay with Secure Horizons, despite the snafu. The deadline extension is a good idea, he said, "but at this point it's not particularly helpful to the public in terms of whatever angst they've gone through for the last 14 days or so" to meet the Sunday deadline.

Pat Fritscher of Tucson said she thinks she got her Secure Horizons packet on time. "I'm very happy with Secure Horizons, so I wasn't looking to change anything," she said.

UnitedHealth spokesman Peter Ashkenaz said packets were delayed because some were found to contain misinformation that had to be corrected, and because of a fire at a company printing the packets.

"We are doing whatever we need to do to work with Medicare to give beneficiaries the information they need," Ashkenaz said Wednesday.

Although Part D packets were supposed to be mailed by Oct. 31, the Feb. 14 deadline extension will apply to anyone who got their information after Nov. 15 — the first day to enroll for 2007, said Jeff Nelligan, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services in Washington, D.C.

Medicare won't have final numbers on how many plans were late getting information out, or how many beneficiaries were affected, until next week, Nelligan said. Medicare will work quickly to get letters to those people advising them of the new deadline, he said.

Medicare beneficiaries who have Part D coverage this year and plan to keep it in 2007 should study their information packets anyway, said Stewart Grabel, ombudsman for Pima Council on Aging.

"We want them to make sure it still covers the prescription drugs they need and that premiums and co-pays are still within their price range," Grabel said.

The Medicare Part D prescription-drug benefit began this year, making prescription-drug coverage available to all senior and disabled Americans on Medicare for the first time in the program's 41-year history.

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