Medicare to pay $2 bln for impotence drugs - study

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The U.S. government will spend nearly $2 billion over the next decade to pay for impotence drugs for elderly and disabled patients under Medicare, according to a congressional estimate released on Monday.

Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who has written legislation to outlaw Medicare coverage for “recreational sex drugs,” said the Congressional Budget Office had tallied the costs of Pfizer Inc.’s Viagra and other medicines to enhance sexual performance. Medicare will start broad prescription drug coverage in January.

"The Medicare system is already strained, and taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for drugs that aren’t medically necessary,” King said in a statement.

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Medicare is the federal health insurance program that covers 43 million elderly and disabled Americans. The White House projects the total cost of covering prescription drugs over the next decade at $724 billion.

Medicare is required by law to help pay for drugs that a doctor deems “medically necessary,” including drugs to treat impotence, said Gary Karr, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“It is widely expected that these (impotence) drugs will be a very small percentage of the drugs prescribed,” Karr said.

Although paying for impotence drugs “is a relatively minor expense within the context of this extremely expensive program, there can be no doubt that the Founding Fathers did not envision paying for the sex lives of senior citizens as among the proper activities of the federal government,” National Taxpayers Union President John Berthoud said in a statement distributed by King.

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