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Posted on 03/10/2006 7:17:35 PM PST by vwunpimsmyride
U.S. senator wants to know why Medicaid funded sex operations
By Alicia Mundy Seattle Times Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — The head of the Senate Finance Committee wants Gov. Christine Gregoire to explain why the state's Medicaid system is paying for erectile implants, sex-change operations and breast enlargements.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said, in a letter sent Thursday to Gregoire, that he has asked the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to look at what he considers dubious expenses discovered in the state's 2004 audit.
Grassley, who led the charge in Congress against Medicaid payments for Viagra and other erectile-dysfunction drugs, said his staff members have interviewed Washington's auditor about issues the auditor raised in the 2004 audit.
"I am amazed by the state auditor's findings," Grassley wrote, citing $9,500 spent for gender-transformation surgery for a Medicaid patient; $40,000 on plastic surgery; and more than $100,000 on "unauthorized" breast implants.
However, the state Department of Social and Health Services has disputed some of the auditor's 2004 findings, said state Medicaid director Doug Porter. He noted that no gender-change surgery has been approved since 2001.
Almost all of the patients approved for penile implants were suffering from prostate cancer, and breast-augmentation operations were approved for women who had suffered breast cancer, he said.
"We are not turning Medicaid clients into supermodels," Porter said.
He did note that the agency and the auditor have had a "rocky relationship."
State Auditor Brian Sonntag said Grassley's staff called him in February shortly after news stories about controversial items he had challenged during the audit.
"It was our office's first time to be contacted by a member of Congress," Sonntag said. "I did appreciate the fact that someone cared."
The 2005 audit will include new questions about spending, Sonntag said. He declined to name those before the audit is released next week.
Federal spending for sex changes and sexual-performance enhancements are the kind of hot-button items that provoke ire in the Congress.
In October, Grassley led a Senate vote to prohibit Medicare and Medicaid from footing the bill for Viagra and other erectile-dysfunction drugs starting this year.
Now, Grassley's staff wants to know how costs for more invasive procedures such as penile implants had been justified by DSHS, which oversees Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals.
Sonntag has also complained publicly that his investigations were stymied by a lack of documentation from DSHS showing that the procedures were medically required and formally approved — a concern Grassley echoed.
"I am troubled by the [state] Department of Social and Health Service's alleged resistance to requests from the State Auditor's Office for access to records to determine if Medicaid funds were misspent," Grassley wrote.
However, Sonntag said his interactions with DSHS have vastly improved in the last year.
He also noted Washington was not the only state billing Medicaid for sexual-performance surgeries and gender transplants.
Gregoire did not comment on Grassley's letter, which she had not seen as of Thursday afternoon.
Alicia Mundy: 202-662-7457 or amundy@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
Yeah, but does the state buy your bras? :-)
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This is astonishing. Hopefully there will be a backlash that finds its way to Maria Cantwell.
And I suppose the taxpayers are also charged for all the complications from breast implants, etc.
It's stuff like this that makes me want to shoot the TV when some liberal puke is on there wantin more of my money "for the children", which is then spent on crap like this.
It's still just the liberals doing it, they just belong to the GOP now and even though they are about 20% of the size of the true fiscally conservative base that has carried the party lo these many years, they seem to have taken full charge of who passes the "preselection" test for federal office nomination.
How has this happened?
How has this happened?
I guess Rudy probably does, but not by my vote.
I guess I need to check out Pence a bit more, since I might not want him either.
The funny thing is McCaine and Frist thinking they are front runners.
I think it speaks volumes that Tancredo was NOT invited to Frist's little shindig at the Peabody, which to me is a ringing endorsement FOR him. Reagan came from the same place, and GHWB along with the Rockefeller RINOs couln't stand him.
Yo, Chuck. It's right there under the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Clause of The Constitution.
If Tancredo runs, and by some miracle actually gets nominated, I will vote for him. But not Rudy or McCain...Frist I am iffy on.
Note to the Senator: Whenever you spend someone else's money - which is all government does - you tend to be very lax and unconscientious in the ways it is spent. Which is why Congress has put us $8 trillion in debt. Hope you wake up soon!
In regarding to the recent article on Washington state's recent "resurrection" of Medicaid's policy on paying for sex-change surgeries. I am not going to reveal my identity as I am what we call in the transgender community "deep stealth", in other words after I had my sex-change operation I do not reveal my past to anyone in my "current" life.
There are a few things I would like to clarify. I am one of the "patients" that the state covered for the procedure as well as a few other related surgeries not genital-related (but not usually covered by Medicaid), and it wasn't a handful of people who got the surgery paid for, to be exact it was three. I got my surgery approved in March of 2000, and through extreme difficulty finding a surgeon who would accept this kind of insurance I had my sex-reassignment surgery September 2002...so I had to wait 2 1/2 agonizing years after being approved due to their lack of interest in finishing the "deal" with the surgeon. I will tell you first-hand the employees of Medicaid are extreme right-wing individuals and very transphobic. They did nothing to "expedite" the process because they regard transgender people as not a priority, but as second-class citizens.
You need to realize there are only a very small handful of surgeons who do this procedure in the United States, and as of NOW there are NO surgeons accepting Medicaid coverage, as their reimbursement is 45% of the total fees. Therefore surgeons avoid it like the plague. The sad truth is even when Medicaid DOES approve the surgery when they rarely did, you can't find a surgeon to do it anymore. So it makes no difference. I had to submit countless documents to prove my "condition", and it was no walk in the park. I'm disgusted that people would even question the necessity of this surgery without knowing the facts first. Medicaid states "they insist patients have other options". Well that is suicide. This is the very sick reality.
In regarding to the recent article on Washington state's recent "resurrection" of Medicaid's policy on paying for sex-change surgeries. I am not going to reveal my identity as I am what we call in the transgender community "deep stealth", in other words after I had my sex-change operation I do not reveal my past to anyone in my "current" life.
There are a few things I would like to clarify. I am one of the "patients" that the state covered for the procedure as well as a few other related surgeries not genital-related (but not usually covered by Medicaid), and it wasn't a handful of people who got the surgery paid for, to be exact it was three. I got my surgery approved in March of 2000, and through extreme difficulty finding a surgeon who would accept this kind of insurance I had my sex-reassignment surgery September 2002...so I had to wait 2 1/2 agonizing years after being approved due to their lack of interest in finishing the "deal" with the surgeon. I will tell you first-hand the employees of Medicaid are extreme right-wing individuals and very transphobic. They did nothing to "expedite" the process because they regard transgender people as not a priority, but as second-class citizens.
You need to realize there are only a very small handful of surgeons who do this procedure in the United States, and as of NOW there are NO surgeons accepting Medicaid coverage, as their reimbursement is 45% of the total fees. Therefore surgeons avoid it like the plague. The sad truth is even when Medicaid DOES approve the surgery when they rarely did, you can't find a surgeon to do it anymore. So it makes no difference. I had to submit countless documents to prove my "condition", and it was no walk in the park. I'm disgusted that people would even question the necessity of this surgery without knowing the facts first. Medicaid states "they insist patients have other options". Well that is suicide. This is the very sick reality.
I am one of the "patients" that the state covered for the procedure as well as a few other related surgeries not genital-related (but not usually covered by Medicaid), and it wasn't a handful of people who got the surgery paid for, to be exact it was three.
I work for a living, and qualify for Medicaid coverage, so that's where you're wrong...it's MY money. Only 3 surgeries were ever paid for in Medicaid history. How many of the fat old White men have had or will need heart surgery and related procedures due to poor eating habits and/or unhealthy lifestyles paid for by their insurance? The cost has been in the millions, if not billions! Yet 3 sex-change surgeries at Medicaid's reimbursement rate of 45% is under $30,000 total for all 3. Yeah, real hysteria to worry about there. That's why I live stealth, because of people like you. You say it's sick and disgusting? 1 in 3 women in the United States is raped/sexually assaulted sometime in their lifetime. Now THAT'S sick and disgusting!
Many of you are against abortion, and you have no problem supporting welfare mothers babies. The more they have the more money they get. You just sit and talk about it on a website and don't do anything but just continue bickering.
Was that supposed to make sense?
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