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
Viagra was put on most states lists of approved medications right after it was released.
That would be list of Medicaid approved medications.
Being a working stiff (bad pun) I have high deductible medical insurance, and couldn't really afford all these fancy medical procedures. I just have to limp along with my little aches and pains.
Schwing ping!
...sorry....
But they wouldn't pay for my hysterectomy when I was a struggling single mother of two babies.
Yeah, thanks alot Medicaid. You can pay for more sex and better boobs, but not a medical procedure (necessary no less) like hysterectomy.
Duh. The Viagra and penile implants are so the Democrats can screw the tax payers better.
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.
One thing is for sure, the "poor" have too much time on their hands for copulation now, judging by their birth rates. Due to taxes confiscated for such BS, most working families must have two earners to even have ONE kid.
WA ping
I can't believe that he even has to ask...
Hey dummy.... it's because liberals are in charge of the checkbook....duh.
There is a person in her mid 20's that comes to our primary care clinic, is on Medicaid, and gets Testosterone injections every 2 weeks, paid for by the taxpayers, in preparation for an addadictomy surgery (as Rush would phrase it). If this person wants a sex change, (s)he should get up off her/his lazy a$$ and get a job to pay for it.
I have a big problem with congress having anything to do with any medical treatment on any level.
This stuff Grassley has hit on is the 'hot button issues' that are a safe call to bring to the public by any politician. But what he didn't go after in medicare and medicaid fraud would make these cases look like spare change.
Socialized medicine is obscene enough without having a politician publicly second guessing medical procedures (Of ANY kind) for political points.
Maybe this thread could be an example of daily experience and human reason would tell me that gender changes are wrong to me but perhaps those funding these procedures are subjective to that reasoning.
But what is the medical science reasoning. Common sense tells me there is no reasoning for gender sex changes or breast implants.
However thinking from a medical science point of veiw perhaps the case for implants was for a post masectomy operation ect. I would have to have all the facts and check out the science and could not base my conclusion on common sense.
However if I was grounded in the teachings of my faith it would reason that these operations are not valid and are vanity issues.
So were the medicaid workers being subjective or objective in the laws or policies guiding their decision?
Or how does that apply if it at all?
Am I missing the point?
Because it's not our money and it belongs to the government and they can do anything they darn well please with it?
The governor of Washington (well, maybe she is) doesn't have to answer questions from some Iowa farmer.
I wonder if this Medicaid audit is connected to the UMDNJ Medicaid investigation?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1593821/posts
The State programs are spending money on this claptrap because morons like Grassley didn't specifically say they couldn't be paid for with Federal Funds.
L
"The Viagra and penile implants are so the Democrats can screw the tax payers better."
It's a "Government reach-around program."
Didn't the state pay for a prisoner to have his sex changed?
If you are thinking of the story I told you, the state funded (or funds) a prisoner to go to a specialist every month for hormone shots. The state even bought the prisoner a bra.
If there was a story about the state paying for a full blown sex change, I missed that one.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.