Bill O’Reilly may not be defending Rush Limbaugh this week, however he did defend insurance coverage of Viagra rather than that of birth control.
Appearing Thursday on “The View,” O’Reilly weighed in on the debate as to whether contraception should be covered in President Obama’s new health care initiative. The media personality said contraception use did not fall into the appropriate category for coverage, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control, while erectile dysfunction did.
"Viagra comes under the government’s guidelines for a medical condition. Contraception doesn't," O’Reilly said.
O’Reilly has already voiced a similar opinion on his own show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” remarking on March 2, “This Viagra argument is another canard. Nobody is saying that American women should be denied insurance coverage if something is physically wrong with them, and that’s what Viagra covers for men, so this is B.S. And by the way, nobody is denying women birth control either, it’s on sale everywhere…Men need to be physically in shape, so, why don’t we pick up gym memberships, that's a health issue, right?”
A compelling argument? For some, not really.
“Bill misrepresents the issue,” write a reader going by valkyrie101 on Mediaite.com. “It is not just about birth control pills, it is about getting the doctor's advice associated with what is unquestionably a medical care decision. Bill says women who are employed by a church employer who is opposed to birth control can omit this care, while providing Viagra to men for their supposed dysfunctions. That makes no sense.”
Related content: