Cnn.com has stated it bluntly: men in the U.S can get their insurance to pay for Viagara with no questions asked but women can’t.
A new drug called Addyi is now on the market and it treats women’s sexual dysfunction in the same vein as Viagara treats men.
Women who are seeking to get their insurance to cover it though, are facing sexual discrimination.
Michelle Weber, who is using s pseudonym, detailed her personal experience in an article written by Elizabeth Cohen, senior medical correspondent for cnn.com.
Weber, who suffers from depression and is in a committed relationship, tells of how her insurance company refused to pay for her Addyi. She was informed that she would have to see a psychiatrist first, before they could think of doing so.
“They don’t tell men who want Viagra that they have to see a psychiatrist,” said Weber, 38.
Doctors who treat sexual dysfunction in both men and women agree this to be true and say that it is a huge double standard in the industry.
Clare Krusing, a spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans says that coverage is an issue because Addyi isn’t believed to be entirely effective, and that it got its approval by the FDA due to a large PR campaign instigated by the manufacturers of the drug.
But others claim it works. And Weber can’t get over the discrimination. Her boyfriend takes Viagara because he wants to have longer-lasting erections, in order to please her more in the bedroom. He doesn’t need it to have sex, she says.
But Weber is the one with the low libido, something she’s had for a long time, even when off of and on anti-depressants.
She is the one who actually needs some fixing in the arousal department, she says, but her man is the one who has easy access to it.
Yet another product that makes healthcare that much more expensive for American women than men.
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