Medicare will NOT buy you a handgun

Our second ammendment right to bear arms means little to those without the physical ability to squeeze a trigger, but that is changing. The good people at Palm Pistol have introduced a 9mm pistol that can be held in your palm like a squeek toy and fired with the press of your thumb. Best of all, according to medgadget.com, the company believes the handicapped may soon be able to get a prescription from their doctor for the gun, and apply to Medicare or their private health care provider for reimbursement.

Or maybe they could leave the receipt under their pillow and the tooth fairy will leave a check for the total amount. The notion that Medicare would pay for a handgun, even though it purportedly has been deemed a Class i Medical Device, which covers Daily Activity Assist Devices, is ludicrous.

I spoke to Peter Ashkenez, spokesperson for the government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who assured me that, since there is no benefit category for such weapons, Medicare would never even reach the stage of evaluating the Palm Pistol to determine whether it could be deemed reasonable and necessary.

Looks like those people with weak grips will have to fund this one out of their own pockets.