Pay For Your Own Erection

“Drug companies,” it is reported, “are strenuously resisting bipartisan efforts in Congress to prohibit Medicare from paying for Viagra and other drugs for erectile dysfunction.
The drug companies need to shut up.

Look, I feel bad for the guys who have had some physical issues that leave them impotent or with some degree of ED. And I’m sure the performance enhancement drugs such as Viagra have provided fuller lives for many men, most of them senior citizens.

But frankly, the Constitution doesn’t grant the right to an erection. It is a violation of the rights of others to force them to pay for yours. Further, the estimated costs of Medicare’s new prescription drug benefit have spiraled wildly beyond original estimates, and we certainly cannot afford to cover these or other “lifestyle drugs.”

It’s hard to believe government has become so involved in our lives that this even has to be debated.

--James Jewell