 |
Year
2007 |
|
Archives
|
|
|
State points to federal compliance in defense of Viagra bill
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
By CARLOS VILLATORO
Register Staff Writer
Got erectile dysfunction?
Need Viagra?
Audrey DeHart, of Napa, doesn't want taxpayers to foot the bill for the $1.1 million the state pays to procure the drug for some citizens.
State officials defend the expense, even though they've offered different reasons for the expense since DeHart took her one-woman protest to Sacramento..
"California administers the federal Medicaid program," said Robert Miller, California Department of Health Services spokesman. "We have to comply with federal law. Erectile dysfunction is a medical condition that Medi-Cal covers. We are obligated by federal law to cover that condition."
DeHart is appalled. Using the Freedom of Information Act and writing a barrage of letters to the state, 74-year-old DeHart -- with the help of the office of Sen. Wes Chesbro, D-Arcata -- discovered that California's Viagra expenses for Medi-Cal recipients topped the million mark last year. DeHart, a retired paralegal, travel to the Capitol last month to protest.
"When was the last time you've heard of anyone dying from lack of sex?" DeHart said. "If anybody wants to buy it, go buy it, but don't make other taxpayers buy it."
CDHS spokesman Miller said recipients are only allowed six tablets of Viagra a month and the majority of them are elderly men, between 50-70 years old, who have erectile dysfunction. Also, doctors must prescribe Viagra for the men to receive it and a CDHS staff member must approve the prescription.
When the Register first reported DeHart's findings, however, the state had a different take.
Lea Brooks, a CDHS spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview last month that most of the people receiving Viagra are paraplegics and quadriplegics who use the drug to help them go to the bathroom.
"If ... (DeHart) doesn't think that paraplegics and quadriplegics ... (shouldn't be) able to put on catheter (tubes) ... that's a good question to her," Brooks said.
As it turns out, Miller said, only a small percentage of those getting the drug are using it to go to the bathroom, alongside a small percentage of women and children who use it to treat pulmonary hypertension.
DeHart said that those who need the drug for non-sexual reasons are "the exception to the rule," and they should be allowed to have it. She volunteered that she takes estrogen, paid for by Medi-Cal, to help control bladder problems.
"I resent it when another person is paying for someone else's sex life," DeHart said. "I've been done with ... (sex) since Dec. 11, 1980, and I'm doing fine."
Medi-Cal benefits roughly 6.7 million people across the state, costing the state and federal governments around $35 billion a year. Last year's Viagra spending grew by more than $400,000. In 2002, the state spent around $600,000 on the sexual drug.
"It's a pricey drug," Miller said. "By comparison, New York spends the most (on Viagra). They average about $16 million a year on that drug. If you take all 50 states and (total) what is spent on Viagra through Medicaid, then what we spend in California accounts to about 3 percent of that total."
Miller said California's Viagra spending translates to roughly 23 cents per Medi-Cal beneficiary. California ranks 25th among all 50 states that spend money on Viagra.
"That's just an added burden," DeHart said.
For now, DeHart's trips to the Capitol have stopped, as she recovers from a stroke she suffered in August.
"As soon as I feel better, I will be back in the fray, right now I just type letters," DeHart said. "People applaud me at what I do, but no one joins me."
source :-http://www.napanews.com | 
