Our rulers in Washington, D.C. appear to have done something sensible for a change by un-doing a government program. According to an Associated Press story in today’s Washington Post:
“A federal agency began notifying states Monday that they do not have to pay for Viagra for convicted rapists and other high-risk sex offenders.”
“The New York comptroller’s office said audits from 2000 through March found that 198 sex offenders in the state received Medicaid-reimbursed Viagra after their convictions. Their crimes included offenses against children as young as 2, Comptroller Alan Hevesi said.”
“Florida attorney General Charlie Crist said . . . that Medicaid has paid $93,000 to provide Viagra to 218 sex offenders in that state over the past four years.”
I could hardly believe my eyes when I read the following commonsensical statement from a federal bureaucrat: “The Medicaid program should not be paying for erectile-dysfunction drugs for sex offenders,” according to one Gary Karr, a “spokesman” for the Department of Health and Human Services.
One has to wonder, though, if Mr Karr would ever have said this had the New York state comptroller not discovered this atrocity and raised a fuss over it.
11:44 am on May 24, 2005
