Posted on 10/18/2004 7:11:02 AM PDT by qam1
Names of impotence drugs seem to be popping up everywhere these days.
E-mail come-ons for Cialis crowd our inboxes.
Lengthy ads for Levitra bombard our TV screens.
And who can forget former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole’s star turn as a Viagra pitchman? Or NASCAR driver Mark Martin’s Viagra-mobile?
Americans may soon see these impotence drugs’ names in yet another place: On a list of drugs covered by Medicare.
Medicare’s drug standards agency, U.S. Pharmacopeia, recently included “impotence agents” in its draft list of drugs to be paid for by Medicare starting in 2006.
Here’s hoping they strike the libido-lifting pills from the list.
We’re not trying to deny seniors a little romance. And there’s no disputing the impotence drugs’ popularity. Cialis, Levitra and Viagra make up a $1.3 billion market in America alone.
Those figures are projected to hit $3.5 billion in seven years as Baby Boomers age.
But there are limits to what a taxpayer-funded health care program can — and should — cover.
Medicare doesn’t pay for all drugs, including many that have therapeutic — not romantic — benefits. And while drugs that enable a healthy sex life may make seniors happy, it’s difficult to argue that they’re medically necessary.
Medicare spending is already out of control. The much-vaunted prescription drug benefit, which was touted by the White House and congressional leaders as “only” costing $400 billion, now has a projected price tag of $534 billion. Adding Viagra and its other feel-good brethren to that pool will only further increase the drug benefit’s cost to the rest of us.
Given all the other health care concerns of the elderly, impotence drugs are fairly low on the medical priority list. What’s next on the taxpayers’ dime? Appearance-enhancing cosmetic drugs to erase Baby Boomers’ wrinkles? Fertility drugs to delay menopause or keep the dream alive of conceiving a child?
The government owes taxpaying citizens, who are footing the Medicare bill, a responsibility to spend money wisely and with discipline. Pandering to seniors does neither.
Xer Ping
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Amen to that. If I cannot have a happy sex life neither can seniors! :) J/k
I think the impotence drugs should be given over the counter to any male who can prove he is over a particular age, say 30.
What's next, Botox? When my elderly grandmother, living on a fixed income, must pay out-of-pocket for her blood thinners and statin drugs because Medicare doesn't cover them, there's no reason old men should get impotency pills. They're not medically necessary.
It be pretty nice if I had a little more recreation in my life too...OOoops...that would mean I'd have to work less or stop WORKING all together.
*rolls eyes*
Whatever. (shaking head)
She'd say "Let the American taxpayers pay for all the other men's Cialis prescriptions."
I think you people are ALL missing the upside to this.
If old farts are popping Viagra, they'll be able to screw something besides us. Maybe they'll be too drunk to notice elections are coming up. Hell, I say we give `em free nitrous, bourbon, and porn, too. It'd be worth it just to keep those thieving old coots out of the voting booth come November.
My medical plan will only furnish one(1) 10 mg. dosage of Cialis per week. I have to con samples from my GP to fill in the other 6 days of the week. They give you a slight headache but it's not even close to the pain you get when you walk into the wall.... git my drift.......
Why is it so easy to dismiss someone else's sex life as not "medically necessary"?
I wonder what would the attitude would be if the author's sex life depended on Viagra?
For most of history amputees got along fine without prosthetic arms & legs, or with very primitive ones. Should Medicare only cover a single hook for a hand prosthesis?
Contrary to the line my high-school boyfriend tried on me...you will not DIE if you don't "get any."
Actually there are studies which show that both men and women live longer if they have good sex lives.
Your boyfriend was right, he was just 60 years too early...
At least it wasn't NASCAR driver Dick Trickel driving the Viagra mobile !!!!
I work for an asian company so I find this sentance funny as Elections would be "Erections" :-)
A medicare boner.
Having lived in Korea for quite a while, I was a bit concerned about that pun coming up (that pun was intended too :).
I figured it might get a rise out of someone.
Why stop there? How about free liposuction, Rhinoplasty, etc. for all medicare recipients? Having a big fat gut or big ugly snoze can make the possibility of healthly sex life beyond the ability for even Viagra to help.
If I going to pay for anyone to have sex, it's going to be for myself.
LOL
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