So Much for “Free” Love by Pat Conrad MD

This is exactly the kind of thing I keep trying to warn you all about. The federal government has no, NO business in the daily provision of health care, no matter what the thieves at the AARP claim. Uncle Sam should not be paying for birth control for college students, and so should not be paying for retirees gettin’ groovy. Ever since the original Bum Generation intimidated the Woodstock organizers into changing the concert to “free”, the Boomers have trained society to look to government for every need. Check this lead-in: ” Imagine not being able to afford one of life’s great pleasures – sex.

That’s true for many older couples, doctors say. Soaring prices for prescription medicines for impotence and other problems have put the remedies out of reach for some.” Oh cry me a river of Ensure. This article from the AP is one of the multitudes of ridiculous sob stories we can expect to read in the coming years. After a Viagra boom in the late 1990’s, Little Blue has lost market share to the Cialis as twin tubs are rising up everywhere (of course as one of my patients explained a couple years ago, Viagra and a little cocaine go a long way to a big Saturday night…and Sunday…and a big 18 gauge needle in the ER. But I digress). The article mentions how price increases have hit not only the pecker pills, but also the topicals and serotonin boosters for the ladies, resulting in decreased general usage. Big Drug is accusing Big Insurance of jacking up the prices on romance drugs, while still running expensive TV prime time ads showing hot babes giving come hither looks next to the drug logo. Often the purchasers are limited to a certain number of hay rolls per month, and resort to splitting pills, pestering their doc for samples, or buying Canadian knock-offs.

Dr. Elizabeth Kavaler, sexual dysfunction specialist, says, “Couples in their 50s, 60s and 70s are more sexual than they’ve ever been.” That’s fine, until she says, “Once you get to a certain price point, sex becomes a financial decision. It takes a lot of the joy out of this.”

In a time when physicians and hospitals are being robbed by Medicare, this is the sort of push that will be used to oppose real reform. This is where the issue becomes a cause, a CNN 30-second bleating, and then an advocacy movement, and then a congressional subcommittee hearing – complete with Big Drug lobbyists – and then a taxpayer funded mess. This is how we got Medicare Part-D, and later, huge rotten components of the ACA. If Meemaw and Peepaw can afford to be swingers in The Villages, then they don’t need to get busy on my dime. Doctors running to the media to worry about their retired patients’ sexual health should worry more about not screwing everyone else.