Medicare toCover Drugs forImpotence(lifestylelike birth control-or desease

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-viagra1feb01.story
THE NATION
Medicare to Cover Drugs for Impotence(lifestyle like birth control -or desease?)
The prescription benefit will take effect next year. The decision to include pharmaceuticals that enhance the quality of life is a matter of debate.
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Denise Gellene
Times Staff Writers

February 1, 2005

WASHINGTON — Medicare's new prescription benefit will cover sexual performance drugs, like Viagra, in addition to medications for such ailments 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 already is projected to cost at least $400 billion over its first decade.

"Ordinary Americans are going to be surprised," said Robert E. Moffit, a healthcare 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 healthcare programs.<snip>

[demnan]

1. While government employees

must pay for their birth control.