Medicare approves Viagra!
Sexual performance drugs such as Viagra will be covered by Medicare's new prescription benefit beginning next year, along with medications for other conditions like high blood pressure and heart disease.
And like those other drugs, prescriptions for Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra will be tightly monitored. The actual law, which takes effect Jan. 1 at a cost of more than $500 billion over a decade, says Viagra (sildenafil citrate) can be prescribed only when medically necessary, and in controlled quantities.
"The law says if it's an (Food and Drug Administration)-approved drug and it is medically necessary, it has to be covered," said Gary Karr, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the health insurance program for older Americans.
Since it was approved by the FDA in 1998, about 16 million men have used Viagra, according to Pfizer reports.
President Bush two years ago signed into law the new voluntary drug benefit, which is expected to cover the medication expenses of 11 million low-income older and disabled people. The government contends the program also could cut drug costs in half for most seniors.
Medicare issued final rules last month for the prescription program, for which people with a low-income can begin registering in June. Other possibly approved people are to sign up in November. The Los Angeles Times was first to report Medicare's coverage of sexual performance drugs.
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