Companies Fight to Ensure Coverage for Erectile Drugs

[rodeodance]

Women' groups had to fight to get mandates for state coverage of the pill and mamograms while other groups fight to include coverage of acupuncture.



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/22/politics/22medicare.html?th

February 22, 2005
Companies Fight to Ensure Coverage for Erectile Drugs
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 - Drug companies are strenuously resisting bipartisan efforts in Congress to prohibit Medicare from paying for Viagra and other drugs for erectile dysfunction.

The issue of whether Medicare's new prescription drug benefit should cover such treatments is raising broader questions of ethics, economics, politics and health policy.

"It's a huge issue," said Jonathan P. Weiner, a professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins University. "We cannot pay for everything, but, unlike many advanced industrial countries, the United States has no explicit process to analyze the cost and value of medical goods and services."
.........


"Erectile dysfunction drugs don't save anybody's life, but make life more meaningful," Mr. Caplan said. "A fundamental principle of medical ethics is respect for the patient's right to self-determination. If you ask Medicare beneficiaries what they want, you will find that sexual function is high on the list. Many men would say that sexual dysfunction is just as important as loss of the ability to hear or to walk a mile."

[Karenina]

1. Words fail...

[Piperay]

2. So a medicare recipient would

rather have a 'hard on' than be able to hear or walk...sad :-(

[Nay]

3. Yep, pretty sad. Sadder still, women have had a long uphill

and mostly unsuccessful fight to get birth control pills covered. The "quality of life" argument didn't fly there, even though unwanted pregnancy is certainly more of a quality of life issue than getting a hard on.

[Warpy]

4. it's not the Medicare recipients

most of whom can't take the limp dick drugs along with their blood pressure medication.

It's the drug companies who want to keep their profits high on the backs of the US taxpayer.

Don't blame old guys on Medicare. They aren't the problem. The drug companies are the problem.

[Enraged_Ape]

5. What is with all these ED drugs?

Is it THAT huge a problem? Is there some other health crisis in our country that's the root cause of this, but that no one wants to talk about? Hypertension? Smoking? Diabetes? Clinical depression? Just WTF is behind this?

Are the drug companies SCARING people into not being able to get boners?