New Jersey Blue Cross Agrees to Pay for Viagra Impotence Drug
Bloomberg News
May 1, 1998, 5:55 a.m. PT
Newark, New Jersey, May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Blue Cross/Blue
Shield of New Jersey, the state's biggest health insurer, will
reimburse its customers for Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra impotence drug,
the Newark, New Jersey, Star-Ledger reported. Each pill costs
about $10, and the publicity the drug has received as a potential
way to enhance sexual performance among healthy men has led some
insurers to demand proof of a pre-existing condition. New
Jersey's other two large carriers, Aetna Inc.'s US Healthcare and
Prudential Insurance of America's Healthcare unit, haven't
decided whether to pay for the new treatment, for which
prescriptions are being written at a rate of 50,000 a day, the
paper said.
Viagra sales could reach $1 billion in its first full year
on the market, even if health plans put strict conditions on
paying for the pills and men have to buy the drug themselves,
analysts said this week.
(Newark Star-Ledger 5/1 47 www.njnews.com)
--Jennifer Farley in the Princeton newsroom (609) 279-4104 sgp |
