...the drug companies are working hard to make sure that "erectile dysfunction" gets covered by Medicare. Talk about a sham.

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


Companies Fight to Ensure Coverage for Erectile Drugs
By ROBERT PEAR

Published: February 22, 2005

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.
[...]
Administration officials said recently that, under their reading of the new Medicare drug benefit, they had to pay for drugs like Viagra, Levitra and Cialis when they were prescribed.

This came as a surprise to many members of Congress. Their concern was heightened by new estimates indicating that the overall drug benefit would cost much more than they were told when they voted on the legislation in November 2003.

"The thought of Medicare wasting vital resources on performance-enhancing drugs is unconscionable," said Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa. "The focus should be on providing coverage for needy seniors."

Mr. King has introduced a bill that says Medicare cannot cover drugs "prescribed for the treatment of impotence."

Representative James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia, a co-sponsor, said: "Here we are using money that could go to cancer, heart disease and other life-threatening illnesses and diverting it into the sex performance of men over 65. It's a scandal."

Why shouldn't senior citizens have access to Viagra? It's a horribly expensive drug, and despite the throngs of "junior citizens" who take it although their erectile dysfunction is due to psychological problems that they should be seeing a therapist for, it was invented for use by senior citizens who need it worse.

Working men whose health plans cover prescriptions can get Viagra for less than fifty cents per pill. Retired men without prescription coverage have to pay several dollars per pill. Why should the people for whom it was created have to pay prohibitive prices when young impotent studs who can't get it up simply because they work themselves to death and have dysfunctional marriages get it almost as cheap as Valium?

Why shouldn't senior citizens have access to Viagra?

Because "erectile dysfunction" is not a disease. It's a marketing campaign dreamed up by pharmaceutical companies.

And when Medicare is having problems paying for actual life-saving drugs, any money spent on subsidizing Viagra is money wasted.

Because "erectile dysfunction" is not a disease. It's a marketing campaign dreamed up by pharmaceutical companies.

And when Medicare is having problems paying for actual life-saving drugs, any money spent on subsidizing Viagra is money wasted.

Give a thought to the 3rd world , Western pharmaceutical companies want them to pay top $ for medicine . In fact South Africa was threatened with sanctions if it bought cheap designer drugs from India to combat AIDS .

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25. 1

You're surprised by this???
Think: there's much more money to be made by preying on male insecurity than by assisting the elderly. It's that simple. Your American health system is completely in the hands of the Pharmaceuticals (and their sway reaches farther than the health community).

Foley: since when has the States paid much attention to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights ???
Current example: oooh, I don't know... sayy... prisoners held illegaly at Guantanamo??

Because "erectile dysfunction" is not a disease. It's a marketing campaign dreamed up by pharmaceutical companies.

And when Medicare is having problems paying for actual life-saving drugs, any money spent on subsidizing Viagra is money wasted.In America it's long been accepted that serious emotional problems are medical problems, just as genuine as diabetes or asthma, and sometimes just as life-threatening. Inability to have intercourse is a major quality-of-life issue. Only an evil wizard would disagree with that statement. Retired people have just as much right to quality in their lives as people still working.

As for Medicare's "problems," they're the same "problems" that plague the entire health care sector. There are too many lawyers and too many bureacrats in the system, sucking about two-thirds of the money out of it and adding no value. When the decision of a doctor or a nurse has to be second-guessed and approved by a glorified clerk with an MBA, while the patient suffers, the system is sick.

What do you call all the bureaucrats from the Chicago office of your HMO lying at the bottom of Lake Michigan? A good start!

Give a thought to the 3rd world , Western pharmaceutical companies want them to pay top $ for medicine . In fact South Africa was threatened with sanctions if it bought cheap designer drugs from India to combat AIDS .

Indeed. Thank god for South Africa and Brazil, who basically told American Big Pharma to shove it - they were going to provide for their citizens, and focus on profit as a distant second.

In America it's long been accepted that serious emotional problems are medical problems,

1. Nonsense. America does not accept that "serious emotional problems are medical problems."

2. "Erectile dysfunction" is not an emotional problem anyhow; it's a natural outcome of the aging process.

3. Don't mistake "accepted" for "effectively marketed."


Inability to have intercourse is a major quality-of-life issue. Only an evil wizard would disagree with that statement.

1. Bullshit.

2. Quality of life is not the same as life-threatening. In a situation of finite resources, we worry about life-threatening first, and quality of life second (or third).

The rest of your argument is like cold oatmeal - smelly, and you aren't going to get anyone to swallow it.

I think with drugs such as Viagra being covered by insurance, people are making policies into socialized medecine rather than "Insurance".

With medicine becoming more expensive, and many different tests and treatments being developed, people are going to have to begin to except the fact that they simply cannot have it all without paying for it. There will have to be that test that you cannot take, or that drug which just will not be covered if you want to keep insurance to a price all can afford.

"elderly need it more" Why? are they going to make babys? no their not because you cant conceive a HEALTHY BABY after the age of 50 when the % chance of an illness rises to 70%. the human race as a whole does not need defected organisms or elderly ones as the use up food, thats according to laws of nature.

Why should medical care cover drugs that help old people get it on, when that money could be spent on real medicine.