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Medicare's drug plans will cost beneficiaries an average of $28 a month in 2009, about $3 more than in this year, according to the U.S. health-care program for the elderly.

The cost for basic prescription drug coverage remains much less than the $44.12 a month estimated when the legislation authorizing drug coverage was enacted in 2003, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday in a statement posted on its Web site.

Premiums paid by beneficiaries for basic prescription plans cover about one-fourth of the program's cost, with the government paying the remainder, according to Medicare.

Medicare will spend about $36 billion this year to subsidize drug coverage. The new estimates were based on bids submitted by companies that receive government subsidies to offer the plans.

"Average plan bids have increased at roughly the same rate as drug costs," Paul Spitalnic, of the Medicare agency's office of actuaries, said in the statement.

The Medicare prescription plans were first offered in 2006.

The increase in premiums reflected rising drug costs, higher estimates of costs for catastrophic drug coverage, and the end of a demonstration project, the Medicare center said.

While premiums are increasing, projected spending is less than expected, said Jeff Nelligan, a Medicare spokesman. The 10-year cost of the drug subsidy program, originally estimated at $634 billion, has been revised to about $395 million, Nelligan said Thursday in a telephone interview.

He credited competition among plan providers, consumer choices of lower-priced drugs, and enrollment that trailed expectations.

About 25.4 million Americans have drug coverage through Medicare, 17.7 million of them in stand-alone plans and 7.7 million in Medicare Advantage plans that provide health care through private insurers, Nelligan said.

Members of both parties have offered proposals to curb the government's costs for the drug plans.