ALBANY, N.Y., May 23 -- 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 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services acted one day after 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.
New York auditors did not review situations in other states, but Hevesi's spokesman, David Neustadt, said policies on Viagra under the health care program for the poor and elderly are apparently the same across the country.
Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist said later Monday that Medicaid has paid $93,000 to provide Viagra to 218 sex offenders in that state over the past four years.
The New York comptroller's report sent the Bush administration scrambling to find a way to close the loophole. Gary Karr, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said Monday that "states already have the power to determine if a drug is not medically appropriate for a certain patient or certain class of patients."
"The Medicaid program should not be paying for erectile-dysfunction drugs for sex offenders," he said. But he said confusion over a 1998 federal directive apparently resulted in Medicaid-paid Viagra for sex offenders.
In a letter Sunday to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, Hevesi requested administrative action or an amendment to the Medicaid law. "It's great that the federal government has responded immediately," Hevesi said Monday.
He said a whistle-blower noticed that sex offenders were getting Viagra prescriptions, prompting his office to compare Medicaid pharmacy expenditures against the state's sex-offender registry.
