State Audit Estimates Medi-Cal Expenditures for Erectile Dysfunction Drugs
Medi-Cal provided reimbursement for erectile dysfunction drugs for at least 137 registered sex offenders in the past year, according to an audit by Attorney General Bill Lockyer (D), the AP/San Jose Mercury News reports.
In the audit, Lockyer's office compared a list of Medi-Cal beneficiaries receiving erectile dysfunction drugs from the Department of Health Services with a list of sex offenders who regularly register with local law enforcement officials. The audit found that Medi-Cal spent $2.6 million to provide 5,855 men with erectile dysfunction drugs in the past year. Of those, 137 were registered sex offenders.
Separately, Controller Steve Westly (D) compared a public sex offender registry to a list of Medi-Cal enrollees and found that during February, March and April, 1% of Medi-Cal beneficiaries who also were registered sex offenders received erectile dysfunction drugs. Reimbursements for those prescriptions totaled $21,000, according to Westly, who is running for governor in 2006 (Curtis, AP/San Jose Mercury News, 6/23).
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) in May directed state agencies to stop providing ex-convicts with erectile dysfunction drugs (California Healthline, 5/31).