Viagra and the Political Economy of Healthcare
An important focus of the media coverage of Viagra has been the drug’s macroeconomic impact. Viagra caused major ripples in the ongoing national debate over health insurance. Almost immediately, controversy raged over the status of erectile dysfunction as a health problem. Comparisons were made between Viagra and the birth control pill in the effort to point out glaring inconsistencies in policy making. In this section I look at two of the areas in which news stories reported Viagra’s impact on healthcare’s political economy: the debate over insurance coverage (including the inevitable comparison with the birth control pill) and Internet sales. Pharmaceutical sales on the Internet raise important questions about healthcare: specifically, the role of the physician - patient relationship.
As a nation, we do like our pills. A pill satisfies both our love of technoscience and our culture’s quick - fix mentality. Indeed, taking a pill is - in miniature - a useful metaphor for instant gratification.tzo As a culture, Americans have grown to rely on prescription drugs for both their efficacy and reliability.u? In her New YOrk Times report, Jennifer Steinhauer quotes Eileen Palace, director of the Center for Sexual Health at Tulane University who notes: We are in a very high - tech society, and people are used to having things done very quickly …. We saw in the s how the pill could control biology. Later we saw how to control fertility. People want a simple, easy, fast, solution. And many physicians assume that just because there is a physical problem means there is no psychological cause.
In a US. News & World Report article that gives a historical account of impotence “cures,” the president of the National Council Against Health Fraud agrees, “People want simple quick answers to complex problems.” The etiology of erectile dysfunction, the status of ED as a quality - of - life condition, and restrictions on prescription allotments are all controversial issues with tremendous financial stakes. Along with reports trumpeting viagra remarkable success as a treatment for erectile dysfunction came the specifics regarding Viagra’s popularity and economic impact. So it wasn’t long before government - sponsored Medicaid and a number of private insurance companies entered into the discussion. This subsection addresses how these three motifs - etiology, coverage, and prescription allotment - were reported in the news.
