Doing Hard Time

I doubt I can improve on Eschaton guestblogger Echidne's reaction to this story: WTF?

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.

Hevesi asked Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in a letter Sunday to "take immediate action to ensure that sex offenders do not receive erectile dysfunction medication paid for by taxpayers."

Comments

doc tom | May 23, 2005, 2:03am | #

cuz, larry, horny 17 year olds dont vote. 60ish widowers do.

mike

thoreau | May 23, 2005, 2:25am | #

Oh, and if sex offenders need urological surgery, I'll volunteer my services.

I'm not trained as a doctor, but I have a dull rusty knife.

Jon | May 23, 2005, 8:24am | #

This does, however, raise the issue of "sex offender" being applied to, say, someone who had sex with a 15 year old girlfriend when he was 17, or something like that, and then being stuck with a lifelong label.

One can argue about how bad that kind of thing is, but it doesn't really compare to violent rape, or molestation by a much older person.

Serafina | May 23, 2005, 12:09pm | #

Hell, many insurance plans won't cover birth control.

Number 6 | May 23, 2005, 12:22pm | #

1) Everyone has the right to have sex.
2) Therefore, everyone has the right to make their neighbors pay for their erections.

Simple, isn't it?

Mr. Nice Guy | May 23, 2005, 12:33pm | #

The Hildebeast (Hillary Rodham in case you don't know) has registered her outrage of this issue.

Gee, yet another lurch for the "center", hunh?

Lowdog | May 23, 2005, 1:09pm | #

Mr Nice Guy - did you see Howard Dean on 'Meet the Press' or some such show? I don't know how many times he mentioned 'personal responsibility'. Don't get me wrong, he was still spouting plenty of Dem rhetoric, but I couldn't believe how much (sorta) libertarian comments he was making.

Mr. Nice Guy | May 23, 2005, 2:04pm | #

Lowdog:

I took one of those bullshit online political tests (I wish I remember which) during the primaries a few years ago, and was told I should be a Dean supporter. Perhaps this was some sort of trick to build up his legion, but I digress. Very roughly, Dean was presented as a social liberal and an economic conservative. He also was a tacit gun rights supporter (even though I suspect he moved on that issue).

Lowdog | May 23, 2005, 2:50pm | #

I've heard those things said about Dean before...maybe the somewhat correct.

William - the gov't keeps tabs on sex offenders. Type "registered sex offenders" in Google and see how each state seems to have a sex offender registry. Not that I necessarily agree, but it is what it is.

So yes, sex offenders are always treated differently, even after they've been released.