Medicare Spending Cuts on Erection Aids Would Save $444 Million
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Congress is poised to prohibit Medicare from spending an estimated $444 million for vacuum pumps used to treat erectile dysfunction in the next decade, a cost-saving move that may frustrate people who can’t afford drugs such as Pfizer Inc.’s Viagra.
Medicare’s prescription-drug benefit, created in 2003, generally isn’t permitted to cover Viagra or other erectile-dysfunction medicines. A bill under consideration by Congress would put a similar ban on the pump devices some people use as an alternative. The spending estimate was published yesterday by the Congressional Budget Office.