MONDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) — Is it a roaring success or a dismal failure?

As the Monday midnight sign-up deadline nears, both critics and supporters of the U.S. government’s roll-out of the Medicare Part D drug subsidy program say the latest numbers tell the tale.

“Right now, 37 million people with Medicare have prescription drug coverage,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Dr. Mark McClellan told reporters last week as the deadline approached.

And with an estimated 43 million Americans eligible for Part D, McClellan was right in affirming that government outreach over the past few months has helped recruit nearly 90 percent of new enrollees to the plan.

But he also went on to mention that the 37 million figure “includes about 9 million individual enrollees in stand-alone prescription drug plans.”

Critics companies of the Part D roll-out say that figure — which represents people who weren’t already covered by existing plans — is the best number to focus on.

“The bundled number of 37 million isn’t useful to us,” said Judith Stein, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Medicare Advocacy Inc., in Washington, D.C.

That’s because 28 million of those 37 million new members had already been automatically switched to Part D from existing coverage such as Medicaid, Medicare Advantage, VA benefits or employer-based plans.

Unfortunately, experts estimate that another 17.5 million Americans who are eligible for Part D are not so lucky — they have no other way of covering their drug costs.

So far, by McClellan’s own reckoning, just 9 million of these uninsured Americans — the people Part D was created to protect — have signed up for the new subsidy, Stein said.

“So, it looks to me that we’re still under two-thirds of people who don’t have other coverage that have actually signed up,” Stein said. That’s not a success story, she noted.

Other problems have emerged since the enrollment period began Nov. 15. Signing up to Part D, which relies on private insurers, has been confusing for seniors suddenly faced with dozens of competing plans vying for their attention — each with its own list of covered drugs. Responding to the confusion, CMS set up a special Web site aimed at helping consumers calculate the relative pros and cons of each choice.

Another problem: Many “dual-eligibles” — poorer or disabled people already covered by Medicaid who were eligible for Part D — fell into a temporary “drug-coverage gap” when they lost Medicaid coverage but weren’t yet placed within the Part D system. Snags like these had pharmacists across the nation scrambling to get cash-strapped seniors the drugs they needed.

Then there’s the “donut hole.” According to plan rules, Part D will cover annual drug costs up to $2,249. The next $3,600 of yearly prescription expenses must be picked by the patient. The subsidy doesn’t kick in again until annual costs surpass $5,850. Experts estimate that nearly 7 million Medicare beneficiaries will fall into the “hole” this year, causing them to shell out thousands in drug costs.

Despite these challenges, millions of seniors and disabled have successfully signed up to Part D, which experts say can and does save them money. McClellan said Medicare-staffed buses “have logged hundreds of thousands of miles since last July,” as staffers and volunteers got the word out in thousands of local events held across the country.

“I think the roll-out has gone really well, considering that this is the first entitlement program in a very long time,” said Thomas Johnson, executive director of the Medicaid Health Plans of America (MHPA), an industry group. “Looking back on it, one could argue that maybe it could have been done in a simp