This is hard to swallow.
The US military blows $41.6 million a year on Viagra for its troops — about five times more than the estimated medical costs for transgender servicepeople, according to a new report.
Spending on the little blue pills is part of $84 million total the military plunks down annually for erectile dysfunction medicines, according to the Washington Post, which cited a 2015 report by the Military Times.
The eye-popping stats resurfaced Wednesday, the same day President Trump announced a ban on transgender people serving in the military because of “the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
A study published last year by the Rand Corp. and commissioned by the Defense Department estimated that treatments for transgender troops would run the military between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually, the Washington Post reported.
The higher estimate for transgender expenses is equal to less than a tenth of the price of a new F-35 fighter jet — or a thousandth of 1 percent of the Defense Department’s annual budget, the Post pointed out.