quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I very much doubt that there are millions of men who are completely impotent who are helped by this drug. In some cases, this is no doubt true, but in my completely unsupported view, in most cases it's a "sometimes I have problems" and "I want to get an erection now" drug, as well as taken recreationally for the "four hour erections" that they advertise.
Maybe I'm wrong about that and millions of men are saved from biochemically based total impotence. But I highly doubt it.
edit: And I consciously chose the breast augmentation thing for the women's body issues connotations.
There are cases where either is very important for a higher quality of life, but in the majority of cases, I don't think this is so.
I don't think you're wrong at all - America is the land of quick fixes and easy cures. For a lot of people, Viagra and the other drugs are just that - an easy fix to a problem that might able to be addressed in other ways.
To say nothing of the "party element" of this drug.
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Insurance certainly seems to have paid for viagra in this case, and will continue to do so for non-sex offenders on the exact same plan.
Better lobby than companies offering fertility treatments. Much larger profit margin.
posted
Trevor, And I'm saying that there's huge difference between total and occasional impotence. I could be completely wrong about the relative numbers there, in which case I'll appologize for what I said. If I'm right though, in most cases it's definitely nice, but hardly extremely important.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I know that. I was just pointing out that the "viagara is a male fertility drug" isn't an effective argument, since fertility drugs in general aren't normally covered.
I would imagine most proponents of covering viagara argue from a quality of life angle.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
And who says one needs to be completely impotent to be helped by the drug? If you can only get an erection once every couple of weeks, are you living a healthy, normal sex life?
Belle: we give out lots of meds on insurance that aren't life saving. Such as the aforementioned pain medication. We give out meds for many reasons, including letting people have a normal quality of life who normally can't.
Sex offenders have already been punished. I haven't ever even heard of a case where viagra enabled a sex offender to be a repeat offender. This sounds more like a desire to punish sex offenders than some urge to protect potential future victims, particularly as it does victimize all those sex offenders who have done their time, quite possibly for relatively innocuous crimes, and have erectile dysfunction which prevents them from, in the opinion of their doctor, leading a healthy sex life.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
Xavier's stance, while wonderfully impassioned, addressed a relatively small percentage of the population.
I submit that I suspect the pharmaceutical lobby pushed for Viagra and other EDs to be available on insurance because they knew men would flock to the drug for all the reasons you listed above.
And doctors would be pressured to subscribe the drug almost on demand because if he or she didn't, the patient would move on to another doctor who wanted their business.
posted
For many, many ex-sex offenders, the way they stay ex is through intensive therapy. If an impotence drug is approved as part of that therapy or as not harmful by the terapist, I see no reason to deny it, but I don't see how making other people pay for it is a justifiable decision, especially as I'm pretty darn sure that most of these cases did not have therapeutic oversight.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Sex offenders have already been punished. I haven't ever even heard of a case where viagra enabled a sex offender to be a repeat offender. This sounds more like a desire to punish sex offenders than some urge to protect potential future victims, particularly as it does victimize all those sex offenders who have done their time, quite possibly for relatively innocuous crimes, and have erectile dysfunction which prevents them from, in the opinion of their doctor, leading a healthy sex life.
As I noted before, it strongly depends on the offender and the reasons for offending.
The hypothetical 19/17, voluntary statutory rape is a sex offender who is unlikely to offend again.
A compulsive offender does not fall into that category and the effectiveness of current rehabilitation models for such crimes is sketchy at best.
The article doesn't mention what crimes these sex offenders had committed and if they have re-offended, there is no way to know whether or not the drug played a role in that.
But until there is clarification, I would rather not re-equip an offender who may or may not be at high risk to re-offend.
-Trevor
Edit: I await Mr. Squicky's rebuttal to my premise that current rehab models for high-risk offenders is of limited effectiveness. Posts: 5413 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have no rebuttal. I think that our penal system is very poorly constructed and fails terribly in a rehabiliative role. I don't see this changing any time soon either.
Frankly, I think that our efforts are better spent on primary preventative rather than post-crime rehabiliative ones anyway. I think we should be concentrating more on preventing kids from going into crime than on trying to prevent people from repeat offending. In effect, I ithink it's better to prevent people from being broken rather than try to fix them after the fact.
But, from what I can see, primary preventive measures, whether in medicine, social dynamics, or psychology are not given a great deal of importance and tend to be ruled more by what people would like to believe are true rather than hard evidence.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
And I submit, that in many cases, the doctor prescribing the viagara has no idea the drug is for a sex offender.
Viagara prescribed by a therapist as part of a rehab program is different from a sex offender walking into a family doc's office, and saying "I'm having trouble one or two times a week with my girlfriend, can you give me some viagara?" Which one of those two do you think happens most often?
Is there policy or procedure in place that encourages doctors to check sex offender lists before prescribing medication?
And back to the argument that we don't deny pain pills to former drug addicts. No, we don't - but we surely do limit their access and doctors dealing with a known former abuser very carefully consider their dosages and the duration of treatment. So the former addict DOES get treated differently when it comes to prescribing pain pills. I think the sex offender should also be treated differently.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Belle, I never said anything about insurance covering it. Really. That was never part of my argument. I was expressing my frustration at those who consider Viagra the way MrSquicky, Trevor, and mph think of it.
I won't address them, because I don't think anything I say will change their minds, but I don't like it when people address arguments that you never made. It was by far my biggest pet peave of the Pool Jumping thread.
I'm not saying its the people who read my posts' fault, I think its probably my own fault for being unclear. I was thinking during the pool thread of putting a clarifier on my debate posts, stating exactly what I am debating. For instance, in my previous post, I might have put:
I am arguing that: Viagra is more than a vanity drug, and its a drug which has helped many, many with both quality of life and fertility issues, proving its medical worth.
I am not arguing that: My opinions on Viagra's worth have anything to do with medicade covering Viagra for sex offenders, or anything to do with insurance at all.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
It was me that brought up insurance because you called it a fertility drug. I made the leap that you were saying "It's a valid medical drug, like a fertility drug and should be paid for" and argued back that fertility usually isn't paid for.
If that's not where you intended your argument to go, then sorry for misrepresenting what you said. I was unclear.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
But no, I wasn't expressing any opinions on insurance stuff.
My gut instinct is that fertility drugs (and contraceptives for that matter) should indeed be covered, my opinion on that doesn't really effect this debate at all.
One problem I have with medical insurance (which also has nothing to do with this current debate) is that wisdom teeth removal should be covered. The only reason I can think of for no coverage is that it has to do with your teeth. So maybe they think that your dental insurance should cover it. But dental insurance doesn't cover it either. At least mine doesn't.
Its a surgery that you need to undertake if you have impacted wisdom teeth. It was nothing you could have prevented. Why does nobody insure it?
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'd be fine with a blacklist for certain categories of sex offenders (such as any already repeat sex offenders); but a general blacklisting of sex offenders? That's hurting too many men who have paid their time, in many cases deeply regret their time, and are on a plan which pays for that medicine for everyone else on that plan.
I'm of the "one innocent man is too many" persuasion, and also the "denying one (edit: worthy) person prescribed medicine in order to prevent nebulous potential harm through a connection that's never been shown to exist is too many" persuasion.
For instance, what if there isn't any connection at all between viagra use and repeat sex offenses (shouldn't be too hard to collect the data given how well sex offenders are tracked; interesting study idea)? Why are we denying viagra provided to other people on the same plan then, vindictiveness? I would rather not be part of a society that's willing to prevent people who have been punished and aren't recidivist from living normal lives supposedly supported by a medical plan they're on based on an unproven, vaguely possible link between viagra and repeated sex offense or some need to hurt sex offenders beyond their lawful sentences.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
fugu, you and I agree on one thing - let's study it and see if there is a link to recidivism or the recreational type use of Viagara to offend.
We are not on the same page with the "one innocent man is too many" in this particular case (though I suspect we agree on the death penalty) because my flip side thought is "one child molested or woman raped with the aid of viagara paid for by my tax dollars is too many" persuasion.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'd be fine with studying it -- make sure the study checks different categories of sex offender, btw.
However, in the meantime, as we know there are classes of sex offender who are perfectly normal people who happened to be in a bad situation (19 year old with a 17 year old, as an instance), I say keep it okay. They have served their sentences, they're already required to register their location so anybody can find them, and the default principle should always, always be that, except in situations where we have good reason to do otherwise, that when someone reenters society from prison they get back their rights.
We don't have a good reason to do otherwise. We don't have any evidence of a link (I haven't even seen a link to a single case where viagra enabled a sex offender, much less a repeat sex offender) posted here (or anywhere). Let them enjoy the same treatment that other people enjoy until we have a reason to deprive them of that treatment.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
And yes, we don't want public monies going to enable sex offenders. But you know what? Some of those people receiving viagra on the plan who aren't sex offenders are prolly going to have first offences as sex offenders. Some policemen use their guns to commit crimes. Et cetera.
Until we've got a well backed-up reason to stop prescribed medicine for a known and common medical problem to a class of people, we shouldn't stop it.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
.
