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Medicare confirms coverage to include Viagra
Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Washington -- Medicare's new prescription benefit will cover sexual performance
drugs, such as Viagra, in addition
to medications for ailments such as high blood pressure and heart
disease, program officials confirmed Monday.
The move into what some consider "lifestyle" -- rather than life-saving -- pharmaceuticals is being criticized by conservatives, who see it as an unnecessary frill for a program that is projected to cost at least $400 billion over its first decade.
"Ordinary Americans are going to be surprised," said Robert E. Moffit, a health care analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research and educational institution in Washington. "But this should not be a shock. ... Once you create a universal entitlement, the tendency is for the entitlement to expand."
Clinical experts said that from a medical perspective, the decision made sense -- and followed the practices of private insurance plans and other government health care programs.
"These are drugs that treat a condition that compromises the quality of life but doesn't threaten life," said Dr. Ira Sharlip, a urologist and professor at UCSF. "But there are many drugs that are approved for quality-of- life indications. It wouldn't be right to single out (impotence drugs) as frivolous when there are so many others in the same category" -- such as prescription drugs for indigestion or mild pain, he added.
Medicare's outpatient prescription benefit will take effect next Jan. 1, and beneficiaries will begin signing up for the voluntary benefit this fall. They will pay monthly premiums to participate in one of a number of private drug plans certified by Medicare; the government is expected to pay three- quarters of the premium cost as well as a percentage of annual drug costs. source:-http://www.sfgate.com | 
