Your Rock Hard Tax Dollars at Work

From Minnesota Daily's editorial:

Medicare's new prescription drug program will now cover sexual performance drugs such as Viagra and Levitra. The new law makes it so any drug that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is medically necessary will be included in Medicare's coverage.

More than 15 million men have tried Viagra, and the prescription isn't always medically necessary. Because of this, common prescriptions to treat male erectile dysfunction such as Viagra and other sexual performance drugs will be prescribed under tighter control this year.

Whole thing here.

Alas, the prescription drug benefit--in most, and probably all, ways, nothing more than a sop to the pharmaceutical industry--may not help ailing ED drugs, whose sales are softer than, well, a lazy fly ball popped up by Rafael Palmeiro.

Last year's world sales for the medications were about $2.7 billion, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey estimates--at least $1 billion lower than drug industry analysts forecast two years ago.

Pfizer's Viagra pioneered the market in 1998. At the time, one Wall Street firm reportedly expected that drug alone to post sales of $4.5 billion by now. Instead, its 2004 sales were $1.7 billion, down 11% from 2003.

Whole thing here.