"Federal health officials recommended two weeks ago that hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk for AIDS take a daily pill that has been shown to prevent infection with the virus that causes it.
If broadly followed, the advice could transform AIDS prevention in the United States — from reliance on condoms, which are effective but unpopular with many men, to a regimen that relies on an antiretroviral drug.
It would mean a 50-fold increase in the number of prescriptions for the drug, Truvada — to 500,000 a year from fewer than 10,000. The drug costs $13,000 a year…"
I think gays should pay for this themselves rather than the general public.
PS: Title a bit unclear: the cost is $13,000/year for each Gay or other person at risk–a prophylactic not contraceptive.
I didn’t see anything about who should pay for it. Presumably, the individuals will pay or they will have insurance that would cover it. Either way, it’s tons cheaper than treating someone who contracts HIV.
Indeed. The whole same sex sex pretty much takes care of the contraceptive issues.
To answer the question? No, I don’t think we should pay for prophylactic care. I might agree that giving free condoms is a good thing to do. But if a person wants to not be responsible it should be on them to deal with the consequences. If the person was raped and the prophylactic was still useful after the fact, I would support that as well.
Unless you advocate cutting off HIV+ people from any medical aid they don’t pay for out of their own pocket, we’re going to end up paying for it anyway. Would subsidizing this pill bring down the overall cost of treating HIV and AIDS? If so, we should subsidize it, and save the hand-wringing about personal responsibility to priests and philosophers.
That said, I have my doubts if this would really be effective. There’s a lot of people out there who, apparently, are sufficiently uninterested in not dying that they won’t wear a condom when they fuck. How many of those people would be willing to take a daily pill, instead? I suspect not many, which means that all this is going to do is pay for the people who were already wearing condoms to switch to the pill: effectively, subsidizing a more satisfying sex life, as opposed to a safer sex life.
That being said, if an insurance policy already covers birth control and Viagra, there’s no reason it shouldn’t cover this, too.
Yeah, I think it clouds the issue to make this a “Gay thing.” There are straight men who are at high risk for catching HIV, and gay men who are not.
Well, if insurance covers it, that means that everyone who participates in that insurance policy is sharing the cost. Which may not be fair, for everyone else to subsidize someone’s freely chosen high-risk behavior. But you have a good point about comparing the cost of this preventative measure to the cost of treatment for people who become HIV-positive.
It also matters very much why the drug costs $13,000 per person. It’s possible, as far as I know, that it could be made far more cheaply if there were a demand for it; but it’s also possible that a demand for mass quantities would make it even more expensive.
I’m inclined to let the insurance companies do the actuarial analysis - is it cheaper to provide the drug to everyone who is high-risk, or to treat the smaller number of people who get AIDS? If the pill is actually cheaper than AIDS, it would actually benefit everyone on the plan by lowering prices overall. I’m dubious that’s the case but I really don’t know.
I agree that men who can’t bother to wear a condom are not that likely to take a pill every day either.
The $13k a year is purely academic. Long before you get to 500,000 people, the price will come down a lot. And if it’s a government program providing it, they can negotiate a much better deal like Medicare, etc. does.
The question as phrased by the OP does not apply to real life.
My insurance premiums already cover the costs of someone’s “freely chosen high-risk behavior”; the woman who broke her leg while skiing a black diamond slope, the guy who broke his head while riding his motorcycle, the kid who broke his arm while trying some foolish stunt on a skateboard, etc.
Hell, add to that the woman who had the high-risk pregancy and whose baby ended up in the NICU for weeks on end. Few things in medicine are that expensive.
It lowers the overall viral load within the population, providing a similar “herd immunity” as vaccines. In fact according the the NYT article I read, this can provide a 99% prevention rate among people who are HIV+, which is better than vaccines.
Some people might not take it everyday, but even if they only take it sometimes, there will be fewer transmissions during those times.
The debate here is really not about gays and contraceptives. It seems to me its asking whether the public should pay for a behavior that is high risk rather than tell the group engaging in that behavior to lower the risk themselves through alternative methods
In this case, throw in moral judgements over the group and their behavior and you get it twisted into being pro or anti-gay. I’m totally pro-gay, but I also think that they have to get over their dislike of condoms. I’ll gladly pay for condoms or other such preventive methods because it has the potential to help everyone and is much easier and cheaper. However, for gays who do contract AIDS, I think the public’s priority of paying for treatment has to balance itself with things like cancer and heart disease
New drugs are usually priced extremely high. For example, in 1989 the AIDS drug AZT was priced at around $10,000 a year. It’s available in a generic for around $30 a month from what I’m seeing online.
Millions of Americans (and residents of many other countries) eat poorly, don’t exercise and as a result develop diabetes and other “lifestyle diseases.” Are you similarly “asking whether the public should pay for a behavior that is high risk rather than tell the group engaging in that behavior to lower the risk themselves through alternative methods”?
I understand what you’re saying. However…how far do we take that line of thinking? Should smokers not receive care for cancer? People who have poor diets or are sedentary not given heart surgery? Type 2 diabetes is usually caused by eating the wrong things, so they should be cut off as well.
I could see this drug being used by couples where one is poz and the other neg to prevent transmission between the two.