Viagra is denied under teachers' health plan

Sometime there’s dismal news and you wonder just what’s wrong with the young. Go back a few decades and we led the world. Whatever you wanted, we had the brains and expertise to produce it. We were the leaders in technology. Our industry was the best. But we’ve just had the news from the College Board. There’s an international ranking for the percentage of the population getting college degrees. We used to be Number One. Now we’ve dropped down to 12th from the top 36 developed nations. What are we going to do if the next generation coming through lacks the education to compete? Think of it this way. The current aging generations are among the best educated we’ve ever had. As they retire, the new generation is going to be one of the worst we’ve had in more than a century. Who’s going to keep us prosperous in the years to come?

Well, the other piece of exciting news comes out of Milwaukee. It seems there’s a major problem with the men teaching schools and colleges in Wisconsin. There’s an epidemic of erectile dysfunction. Standing in front of classes of the young who no longer have any interest in learning is robbing our men of their libido. For the teachers, there’s only one thing wrong with the statistic that a child leaves high school every 26 seconds. They’re not leaving fast enough to make their lives bearable.

The Teachers’ Education Association in Milwaukee has filed suit claiming the denial of erectile dysfunction drugs under the health plan is sexual discrimination. You should understand the scale of the problem. This is not one or two teachers. This is more than a thousand teachers. Why is is discriminatory? Well, female teachers who have sexual problems can claim for vaginal cream and hormone therapy. Denying men access to the equivalent treatment therefore treats the sexes differently. So just how much money are we talking about? At current prices, the School Board estimates the cost of supplying the Viagra to the number of men with outstanding claims would come to about $800,000 a year. It’s interesting when you consider how many teachers could keep their jobs if that money could be kept in the staffing budgets rather than be transferred as payments under the health plan. The question is really about priorities when budgets are tight. While there’s little doubt that men with erectile dysfunction deserve treatment, perhaps their colleagues facing unemployment would prefer to keep their jobs. Yet the School Board has not exactly endeared itself to the teachers by arguing Viagra is mainly used for recreational purposes. If the choice of illnesses and disorders to be covered under a health plan is decided by whether the problem is vocational, that would limit teachers’ claims to stress disorders and treatment at the Emergency Room for those meeting a student having a bad day. Health is health. If you hurt your arm, you cannot work and your tennis suffers. No one would deny treatment for the arm on the ground it was only used for recreational purposes.