The New York Times has an intriguing report about a drug that a German drug company has "stumbled upon" that purportedly will raise a woman's sexual libido. Call it Viagra for women. The FDA has been holding hearings about this new drug and ever since Viagra has been FDA approved, many in the pharmaceutical community have worked to turn low sexual libido in women into a medical pathological condition. Whether you agree with that or not; whether you see this as damaging to women and women's rights world wide or not; there is no doubt that should this new drug pass FDA regulations and hit the market, there will be significant backlash from a variety of communities.
Due to current insurance regulations and laws, the administrator of insurance plans (ie: Blue Cross/Blue Shield or AETNA) usually defer to employers to chose what is and is not covered under insurance plans they provide/offer to employees, after the base plan that is offered for a certain premium. If the company choses a self funded plan, the restrictions on what they do and do not cover are even less. This has in part, created the trend that sees employers creating exemptions that say birth control, abortions and several other women's health services as "medically unnecessary" or simply "not covered" . Yet, there is almost always no restrictions on the coverage of drugs like Levitra, Viagra and Cialis. Now, with the pending approval of a female libido-enhancing drug and the push to create the "low female libido" condition - there is no doubt insurance companies will cover such a drug.
To me, this is tragic. There is no question in my mind that the refusal to cover services to treat/prevent/help women and women's health services , is blatant discrimination. Even with the historical health care insurance reform bill passed earlier this year, there were still provisions-nay an entire debate- over whether the "tax payers would be forced to cover abortion services" . The fact that this was disingenuous and blatantly false; not to mention that tax payers will pay for the unwanted child down the road anyway; created a nasty tone to a debate whose derision for women and women's health was all to obvious. I was very saddened and even quit blogging about the health care bill because I felt it was damaging women's standing in our country.
It turns out that in that light, I was correct. The priorities of the pharmaceutical companies, our Congress and in many way the FDA, are askew. It doesn't matter to these groups of white men in suits, that women are harmed by their actions (and inaction on important shit, like birth control, contraception and abortion services).