Massachusetts forces insurance companies to pay for drug that costs $24,000 a year...

I’m a libertarian. I don’t care what consenting gay adults do in the privacy of their own home.

But I do care about spiraling health care costs that, for decades, have been growing substantially faster than the rate of inflation.

There’s already a very low cost way for sexually active gay men to substantially reduce their risk of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The Centers for Disease Control states:

When used the right way every time, condoms are highly effective in preventing HIV

But there’s a problem – at least to the people who work in the Medical Industrial Complex and make their living off of overinflated health care costs: condoms are very inexpensive. And low cost health care is the enemy of the Medical Industrial Complex.

To deal with this “problem” of low cost health care, the Massachusetts government has ordered insurance companies to pay for a drug called Truvada.

Truvada is a drug that sexually active gay men who don’t have HIV can take, which substantially reduces their risk of contracting HIV, even if they don’t wear a condom. It costs $24,000 a year.

So now, the very same Centers for Disease Control that says inexpensive condoms “are highly effective in preventing HIV,” is also saying that healthy, sexually active gay men who do not have HIV should switch to Truvada, which costs $24,000 a year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urges men and women at risk for H.I.V. infection to take Truvada daily. Studies have shown the drug to be extremely effective at blocking the virus…

Given that the CDC already says inexpensive condoms are “highly effective in preventing HIV,” it’s absurd that the very same CDC is now urging people to switch to a drug that costs $24,000 a year.

Clearly, the CDC, as well as the government of Massachusetts, are both aligned with the Medical Industrial Complex, whose goal is to make health care more expensive, not less expensive.

“..as using an umbrella in a hurricane.”

I imagine that a typical condom isn’t that useful for homo sex as the body doesn’t provide natural lubrication there, and for some reason I would expect it to be rough sex.

Maybe somebody could reuse bicycle tire inner-tubes for anal sex?

I imagine someone could come up with some good marketing with the terms “bi”, “inner” and “tubes”.

There are drugs that cost way more than this. And Medicare is covering them.

My coverage is Medicare/Tricare Life as hubby is a Ret. SCPO of 20 yrs. Both are being gutted. Co-pays up. And they want you to fill scripts at Military Base or Express Scripts. I get SIBO a bowel infection, one 14 day round of 3 pills a day retails at $1,500+ can only be base filled. I’m having to pay for the multiple removal of 11 lower teeth, bone spurs, 1 lower denture has now reached near $5K. Monday will tell how much more has to be done. This has been going on Since Aug 9. 2 removals and 1 bone spur surgery, looks like a 2nd one will be needed. FDA Approved meds ruined my teeth to the point they were to painful to endure. I have to live with the uppers being that way as they are a full set sans wisdom teeth.

This won’t be the first surgery we’ve had to pay for, as the repair process is Cosmetic for a Medical Reason.

There are drugs that cost way more than this. And Medicare is covering them.

Bad things happen to people, but insurance coverage need not be the same for all of them. People can have disastrous accidents. Any of us might trip and fall down the stairs at any time, or be hit by a drunk driver. In a rational market, people would have insurance against catastrophic costs to cover this -- but if you engage in highly risky sports or have a record of alcohol or drug abuse that significantly increases your risk of accidental injury, you would get an adverse rating and pay a premium.

Aside from accidents, hideously expensive medical conditions that are entirely outside of our own control can and do occur. These are essentially random. In a rational market, insurance would naturally pay for these. Some of these medical events, however, are not entirely random; they are linked to obesity, smoking, drug use, etc., and you could and should be rated for these factors.

Then there are medical costs that are linked primarily to lifestyle factors. Here people should be on their own hook. I should not be obligated to pay for your bad habits, nor should you be obligated to pay for mine (on the purely hypothetical assumption that I had any). Sexual misbehavior is one of the biggies in this area, along with smoking, alcohol and drug use, and obesity. Drug abusing fat pigs with STD's should pay their own blankety-blank medical costs.

The left has succeeded in framing this entire discussion as a matter of insurance companies "discriminating" against people with serious medical conditions. We need to reframe the discussion. This should be properly considered as a matter of people being rewarded for their good behavior and personal discipline. Avoid the common vices, keep in reasonably good shape, and keep your pants zipped up when you should, and you should enjoy preferred premium status when it comes to insurance. Instead, under current law and regulation, you get treated as a chump, a cash cow to subsidize other people's bad behavior.

It is not true that all of this simply cancels out, i.e. that everyone has essentially offsetting vices so that we can appropriately be dumped into a common risk pool.

The cost of a particular drug is a very secondary question. The real issue here is people with high risk lifestyles trying to offload the costs on someone else via politicization of the insurance system.

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Massachusetts government forces health insurance companies to pay for drug that costs $24,000 a year so gay men won’t have to wear condoms