How does insurance covering Viagra for men discriminate against women?

Ok Jess, I am gonna answer this question in a super basic way.

Insurance for Viagra discriminates against women because women have no use for Viagra.

Insurance for contraceptive pills discriminates against men, because they have no use for contraceptive pills.

So both discriminate against the gender that can not use them.

When it comes out that a particular insurance plan indeed covers Viagra but does not cover OrthoCept, we have a problem because it is privileging the male reproductive apparatus.

And people might have all kinds of B.S. word games to reason with and technical loop-holes and semantic nuances, but the bottom line is that for a man, achieving an erection is not a medical necessity. At some point, nature takes this capacity away. Is he going to die, if he can't ever attain an erection?

Not like he will die, if he does not take his statins or his beta blockers. Right?

So how is Viagra a medical necessity?

Although preventing the conception of children that people can not afford is not a medical necessity either, feminists get outraged when they hear about Viagra being covered when OrthoCyclin is not.

Because it is a manifestation of machismo ... this idea that masculinity is some kind of necessity or a God-given right, but women ... and women's health and pregnancy and children ... meh ... let them deal with it. Make them pay $45 per month, out of pocket for pills. It isn't a medical necessity, after all.

That is how I understand the argument, anyway.

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In my opinion, isurance to cover birth control is beneficial to society, in lowering the number of unwanted children. The benefits of Viagra are debatable. It can improve mental health, but it can also be dangerous for older men, especially those with heart problems. I don't think insurance to cover Viagra is discrimation towards women; it's only questionable if Viagra is a safe medical treatment.

"Discrimination" likely isn't the right word for that situation - unless the costs of women subsidizing benefits that only go to men significantly outweighs the costs of men subsidizing the costs of benefits that only go to women. The reason it's more concerning is because what you're describing isn't insurance - rather, it's a tax.

Insurance is something we buy in anticipation of large costs we might incur to ourselves, preferring to pay regular, predictable (ultimately higher) costs so as not to have to pay sudden, unpredictable (ultimately lower) ones. But we don't insure ourselves against things that don't apply to us: if you don't have a yacht, you don't buy yacht insurance. If you're FORCED to buy yacht insurance, then a) that's a tax, not insurance: you're not protecting yourself against a cost, you're making a mandatory contribution toward a societal cost, and b) if the yacht owners aren't similarly subsidizing other people, then that's a discriminatory tax.

Whether health insurance should be covered by taxes for society as a whole or be something that should be purchased individually is an open and hotly controversial issue. But if you're a single woman, and you're buying insurance to cover your Viagra needs, you're either extraordinarily careless with your policy, or you're not "buying" that insurance voluntarily.

Maybe if the doctor wrote a letter of medical necessity the insurance would cover it.

It doesn't discriminate against women, just like birth control doesn't discriminate against men. I've heard that argument before and it's basically nothing but Republican propaganda. They grasp at every straw they can to avoid giving healthcare to the poor and this is just a by product of that mentality.

Because Erectile Dysfunction is a medical condition. One that happens to most men as they age .True the birth control pill aids many different medical conditions for women but... mostly it's so they can have sex without having a baby and for some reason that's not ok with God who is apparently not powerful enough to make birth control fail when he intends for sex to result in a baby.

Coverage of prescription medications to restore a normal & healthy bodily function, such as a man's ability to sustain an erection, does not discriminate against women in any way. Covering unnecessary medical treatments to support a lifestyle choice, such as abortions, does discriminate against men if it involves forced subsidization of women by men's tax or premium dollars.

Because women having sex is a "choice", and men NOT able to have sex is a "medical condition"!

Men having sex is a human right, women having sex is a luxury.