Julie

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,146023,00.html

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

WASHINGTON — Sexual performance drugs like Viagra (search) will be covered by Medicare's new prescription benefit beginning next year, along with medications for other conditions like high blood pressure and heart disease, Health and Human Services (search) officials said Tuesday.

And like those other drugs, prescriptions for Viagra will be tightly controlled. The law, which takes effect Jan. 1 at a cost of more than $500 billion over a decade, says Viagra can be prescribed only when medically necessary, and in limited quantities.

"The law says if it's an FDA-approved drug and it is medically necessary, it has to be covered," said Gary Karr, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (search), which administers the health insurance program for older Americans.

Since it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (search) in 1998, about 16 million men have tried Viagra, according to Pfizer, which makes the drug.

President Bush two years ago signed into law the new voluntary drug benefit, which is expected to cover the drug expenses of 11 million low-income older and disabled people. The government contends the program also could cut drug costs in half for most seniors.

Medicare issued final rules last month for the prescription program, for which low-income people begin registering in June. Other recipients are to sign up in November. The Los Angeles Times first reported Medicare's coverage of sexual performance drugs.

Conservatives say the law opens the door to precisely the kind of big government bureaucracy that they -- and Bush -- campaigned against.

There was never a discussion of what drugs would be covered during Congress's all-night debates on the issue, one analyst pointed out.

"You cannot have a universal entitlement like this without extreme micromanagement," said Robert E. Moffit, a health care analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

"Members of Congress, frankly, are not competent to make these decisions. Is Congress going to start writing prescriptions?" he added. "Micromanagement will institutionalize incompetence."

The signature component of last year's Medicare law, the prescription drug benefit, will vary widely in its impact on the 29 million older and disabled Americans that the Congressional Budget Office projects will enroll, the study said. The CBO said the average savings will be 37 percent in 2006.

Julie

My son last year had a tooth knocked out in a fight (don't ask), and his insurance wouldn't pay for his $2,500 bridge, claiming it was cosmetic and not medically necessary. His Senior Pictures were about to be made for Pete sake, and I had to pay for it!

Now I have a question? When is Viagara "medically necessary?"

Ray

America is sure the Land of Opportunities!

Ray

Ask the poor 'lack of self confidence' guys who take it by the dozen!

MIKEMUN

It is a matter of national security,Julie...Think of all those frustrated guys...

Julie

More like the pacifying the "horney old men" if you ask me.

MIKEMUN

We might get to see more old men do a k'lintonne......

Aryan

Which tooth was it? Not having a full set of frontal teeth can have some semi serious implications, especially during adolesence, such as speech and pronunciation problems.

Julie

One in the very front. And, my opinion also was that it could cause future complications, like the shifting of the other teeth. But, it was still denied by the insurance company as being "cosmetic."

Ray

Julie,

Where is Sniper?

Julie

LOL, dang good question Ray. He posted here earlier this morning, but he must have missed this interesting thread. But then again, could you imagine Sniper being pumped with hormones? Could be a scary scene.

Confed999

Not sure I can go with "medically necessary" on this one.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

barrowaj

You mean congressmen? Or their republican AARP constituents...?

Viagra is NOT medically necessary. You can get free samples from your doctor if you are too poor to afford it, anyway. Erectile dysfuntion in society will improve if we can reel in high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. At some point its nearly inevitable, but at least that can be delayed.

You wanna know how much drug benefits are gonna cost us? Its going to be INSANE. This is why we should spend a few dollars now in preventative healthcare, it will save us from spending hundreds upon hundreds of BILLIONS later.

Confed999

Odd, best of my knowledge AARP calls for membership to vote Democrat. They are currently playing the Democrat's game on social security, though not one of their memebers will be affected in any way.
I don't know, but when it was passed the Democrats complained it should be bigger!
Or scrap the whole thing...

barrowaj

Maybe, but ever looked at the voting by county in Florida?

Well, thank god that didn't happen.

We should get rid of it, but in its place we should implement a national medical care program. Socialized medicine is a definite plus for America in terms of overall medical care. We could save a lot of money by pulling it off too. In implementing it, we would be able to centralize a lot of our infrastrure resources and avoid doubling of services. For instance, there could be one centralized database of patient records available all around the country. This would save the cost of employing all kinds of people whose jobs is to keep up the records at each and every office. Time spent on insurance claims would be reduced to practically nil. Did you know doctors often spend around 20% of their time on insurance claims? Furthermore we could implement a type of preventative care for the whole population. This would save us the cost of when someone with no medical care shows up in the ER with a major life threatening illness, which is a lot more expensive than preventing that illness in the first place.