American Health Line, a service of the National Journal, summarizes four newspapers' editorial responses to the Medicare decision to cover erectile dysfunction drugs.
* The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (registration required): It "seems a stretch that government programs should pay to maintain or invigorate a lifestyle when health care costs are going through the roof and the money could be better spent to treat more critical medical conditions," a Journal-Constitution editorial states. The editorial concludes that "there's nothing charming about subsidizing someone's love life at taxpayer expense"
* Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: The decision to add "sexual performance prescription drugs" to the Medicare drug benefit formulary is the "most recent indication that the government is not thinking deeply enough about the impact of this benefit," according to a Democrat and Chronicle editorial. If Medicare "is to keep its drug costs below the stratosphere," it "has to cast a very critical eye on drugs that do more to brighten lifestyles than to treat illnesses."
* San Francisco Chronicle: A "ban" on "lifestyle drugs" from the Medicare drug formulary "would be ill-advised; it could become a dangerous precedent," a Chronicle editorial states. However, "at the very least, the administration should adopt some reasonable cost controls on impotence drugs, such as those adopted by HMOs -- by limiting the number of prescriptions per beneficiary and by bargaining hard for discounts."
* Washington Post: Instead of "genuine reform" that would use "evidence-based medicine and ultimately ... reform ... the wasteful health care delivery system ... a drug benefit was simply tacked onto the existing [Medicare] program," the Post writes in an editorial. According to the Post, the result is that "taxpayers may wind up paying not only for Viagra but for a whole host of other expensive, and not always necessary, drugs as well."
Posted by schwitz at February 4, 2005 11:17 AM