SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Under pressure from the Bush administration, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered state health officials yesterday to not provide Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs to convicted sex offenders.
Schwarzenegger said he issued the emergency order "to protect all Californians" until permanent regulations can be written to "target the sex offenders who pose a threat to innocent citizens with these drugs."
About 63,000 registered sex offenders live in California. The state does not know how many - if any - are getting impotency drugs through state health programs because California is prohibited from using the Megan's Law registry for such purposes.
Schwarzenegger's order came two days after the Bush administration threatened to impose sanctions against states that provide erectile dysfunction drugs through Medicaid, which funds California's Medi-Cal program for low-income and uninsured patients.
About $38 million a year is spent nationwide on Viagra and other such drugs through the federal Medicaid program. A small portion of that has gone to sex offenders, the Bush administration has said.
The practice was revealed in a recent audit by New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who found that 198 offenders in his state had received Medicaid-reimbursed Viagra from January 2000 to March. Tabloid newspapers in New York splashed the audit across their pages.
In 1998, health officials under the Clinton administration ordered Medicaid to provide impotency drugs for medical necessities such as a man recovering from prostate cancer or suffering from diabetes. The directive did not prohibit such drugs from being dispensed to registered sex offenders.
"Requiring that convicted sex offenders be provided Viagra for sexual dysfunction, paid for by the taxpayers, is one of the worst policies ever developed by the politicians in Washington," Schwarzenegger said.
The Bush administration warned this week that providing erectile-dysfunction drugs to sex offenders "could constitute fraud, abuse or inappropriate use" of government funds. That may lead the federal government to withhold health care funds from states that don't comply, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.
The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Publishing newspaper.
