The New York Times > Washington > Companies Fight to Ensure Coverage for Erectile Drugs

And does insurance cover contraceptives????

The New York Times > Washington > Companies Fight to Ensure Coverage for Erectile Drugs:
"WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 - Drug companies are strenuously resisting bipartisan efforts in Congress to prohibit Medicare from paying for Viagra and other drugs for erectile dysfunction.
The issue of whether Medicare's new prescription drug benefit should cover such treatments is raising broader questions of ethics, economics, politics and health policy.
'It's a huge issue,' said Jonathan P. Weiner, a professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins University. 'We cannot pay for everything, but, unlike many advanced industrial countries, the United States has no explicit process to analyze the cost and value of medical goods and services.'
The debate centers on whether a drug used to enhance sexual performance should even be eligible for Medicare coverage. Proponents of providing the coverage say that erectile dysfunction often has a physical cause and that treatment can significantly improve the quality of a man's life. Opponents say that Medicare, already growing at an unsustainable rate, cannot afford to pay for 'lifestyle drugs.'"

Under the new law, drug coverage will become available in January 2006 to all 41 million Medicare beneficiaries, regardless of their income or assets.

The drug benefit will be delivered by private insurers, subsidized by the government. Under the law, insurers have to cover "drugs in all therapeutic categories and classes," but not necessarily every drug in every class. "Impotence agents" are among the 146 categories and classes recommended by the United States Pharmacopeia, a private nonprofit group that advises the government.