Massachusetts government forces health insurance companies to pay for drug that costs $24,000 a year so gay men won’t have to wear condoms

I’m a libertarian. I don’t care what consenting gay adults do in the privacy of their own home.

But I do care about spiraling health care costs that, for decades, have been growing substantially faster than the rate of inflation.

There’s already a very low cost way for sexually active gay men to substantially reduce their risk of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The Centers for Disease Control states:

When used the right way every time, condoms are highly effective in preventing HIV

But there’s a problem  – at least to the people who work in the Medical Industrial Complex and make their living off of overinflated health care costs: condoms are very inexpensive. And low cost health care is the enemy of the Medical Industrial Complex.

To deal with this “problem” of low cost health care, the Massachusetts government has ordered insurance companies to pay for a drug called Truvada.

Truvada is a drug that sexually active gay men who don’t have HIV can take, which substantially reduces their risk of contracting HIV, even if they don’t wear a condom. It costs $24,000 a year.

So now, the very same Centers for Disease Control that says inexpensive condoms “are highly effective in preventing HIV,” is also saying that healthy, sexually active gay men who do not have HIV should switch to Truvada, which costs $24,000 a year.

The New York Times reports:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urges men and women at risk for H.I.V. infection to take Truvada daily. Studies have shown the drug to be extremely effective at blocking the virus…

… 80 percent of people who take Truvada are gay men

Given that the CDC already says inexpensive condoms are “highly effective in preventing HIV,” it’s absurd that the very same CDC is now urging people to switch to a drug that costs $24,000 a year.

Clearly, the CDC, as well as the government of Massachusetts, are both aligned with the Medical Industrial Complex, whose goal is to make health care more expensive, not less expensive.