Gov’t helps rapists get it up
Posted by Richard on May 23, 2005
What’s really sad is that QandO is right — this sort of thing just isn’t all that surprising:
Scores of convicted rapists and other high-risk sex offenders in New York have been getting Viagra paid by Medicaid for the last five years, the state’s comptroller said Sunday.
Audits by Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s office showed that between January 2000 and March 2005, 198 sex offenders in New York received Medicaid-reimbursed Viagra after their convictions. Those included crimes against children as young as 2 years old, he said.
Why in the world would the government make it possible for rapists and child molesters to pursue their chosen leisure activities? Well, a few years ago, the feds decided that treating erectile dysfunction is health care, and of course, health care is an unalienable right that we taxpayers must fund:
According to Hevesi, the problem is an unintended consequence of a 1998 directive from federal officials telling states that Medicaid prescription programs must include Viagra. His office discovered that the state was helping sex offenders pay for Viagra by checking Medicaid pharmacy expenditures against the state’s sex offender registry.
If people are by right entitled to the health care they need, and can’t afford it, on what basis do you treat, say, vaginal dryness, but not ED? Or treat non-felons and some felons (say, embezzlers) for ED, but not rapists and child molesters?
Yes, I know those are insane questions. But you can be sure that, if this policy is changed, a whole slew of attorneys will file lawsuits raising those very questions and demanding "equal protection" for their clients.
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