No basis to withhold erection-enhancing drug from sex criminals

There’s more shock and outrage about the revelation that Viagra is being supplied free to convicted serious sex criminals on Medicaid, reports the New York Daily News. But, as I noted earlier, the underlying basis of the situation, which is that all welfare recipients can get free Viagra, remains unchallenged, and indeed, it appears to be unchallengable under present law. It’s a simple matter of equal treatment. As a spokesman for New York State Controller Alan Hevesi put it: “Our reading of the law says federal regulations say you have to provide Viagra to all Medicaid patients and it’s not clear from our reading of the regs that we would have the authority to not provide it to a group.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 23, 2005 09:22 PM | Send