Kaiser Won’t Pay for Viagra

Re “Kaiser, Citing Cost, Won’t Pay for Viagra,” June 20:

While I sympathize with the problem of impotency, I must applaud Kaiser’s decision to refuse coverage for Viagra, the outlandishly expensive new designer drug from Pfizer.

Faced with numerous patients eagerly demanding the newest medical “miracle” cure, the easy out for Kaiser would have been to simply cover the drug, then quietly pass the cost on to other subscribers. Surprisingly, Kaiser just said no. This has set an interesting and challenging precedent.

Perhaps now, we as a society can begin rational discussions on the value of medical treatments--from “critically important” to “somewhat helpful”--as was done in Oregon over 10 years ago. With logically constrained financial resources, we could then decide what should be covered in a “basic” health insurance package.

With an enlarging population, and increasingly limited health dollars, we desperately need to prioritize our spending. To date, we have blithely ignored the financial consequences of our ravenous appetite for more, and often extremely expensive, medical services. Hopefully, Kaiser’s actions regarding Viagra will prompt such a long-overdue national policy debate on health spending.

DANIEL LEVY MD

Santa Barbara

* It’s not just a question of whether the health insurers should pay for Viagra. The bigger question is why the pill costs as much as it does ($10 each). Is it the cost of manufacture, or just Pfizer’s monopolistic greed?

TRENT D. SANDERS

La Canada