Ad attacks Hulshof for ‘taxpayer-funded Viagra’

The politics of taxpayer-funded erectile dysfunction medication will hit the southwest Missouri airwaves today.

The squabble between the dueling Republican candidates began Friday when Steelman took Hulshof to task in a debate for voting in June 2005 against an amendment that would have banned Medicaid and Medicare recipients from getting reimbursed for the sexual impotency medication of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.

But in 2004, as a state Senator from Rolla, Steelman voted for two House appropriations bills that Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration found in 2005 allowed 26 sex offenders to get $7,060 in prescriptions for Viagra.

Missouri taxpayers had to fork up $1,977 of the cost, the Department of Social Services said at the time.

State Treasurer Sarah Steelman will begin airing a TV ad in the Springfield and Joplin markets attacking Republican gubernatorial opponent Kenny Hulshof for supporting “taxpayer-funded Viagra” in Congress.

The squabble between the dueling Republican candidates began Friday when Steelman took Hulshof to task in a debate for voting in June 2005 against an amendment that would have banned Medicaid and Medicare recipients from getting reimbursed for the sexual impotency medication of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.

But in 2004, as a state Senator from Rolla, Steelman voted for two House appropriations bills that Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration found in 2005 allowed 26 sex offenders to get $7,060 in prescriptions for Viagra.

Missouri taxpayers had to fork up $1,977 of the cost, the Department of Social Services said at the time.

Hulshof’s campaign contends Steelman did nothing to stop the use of Medicaid for erectile dysfunction medicine.

“Gov. Blunt came into office and stopped that practice as soon as possible,” said Hulshof spokesman Scott Baker. “The fix originated in Jefferson City and Sarah Steelman did not have the courage to initiate that fix.”

Steelman has accused Hulshof of not having the “courage” to vote against pork barrel spending or stop the federal government from letting men on welfare get erectile dysfunction pills.

When asked about the vote at a Springfield press conference Monday at the Library Center on South Campbell Avenue, Steelman said she did not recall the controversial program — or the headlines it produced in May 2005.

“I’ll have to look at those bills,” Steelman said.

Steelman did emphasize Hulshof’s Viagra vote was a straight “up or down” decision, not part of a large appropriations bill, like the state’s Medicaid spending bills.

Hulshof was the only Missouri Republican who voted against the Viagra reimbursement ban. His only explanation for voting against a Viagra ban and in favor of so-called “pork barrel” projects at Friday’s debate was that he doesn’t “expect Ms. Steelman to understand the nuances of lawmaking in Washington on the national stage.”

Although Hulshof’s campaign is seeking to label Steelman’s Viagra-related vote as another “Steelman stumble,” it was Jefferson City and Washington, D.C. bureaucrats — not legislators — who closed the loophole at Blunt’s request.

In a May 25, 2005 press release, the Missouri Department of Social Services stated: “the DHHS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued new policy to all state Medicaid directors that in effect waived former restrictions and permits states to stop paying for impotence treating drugs for individuals that have been convicted of sex crimes.”

The Blunt administration was able detect sex offenders getting Viagra by cross matching the Medicaid pharmacy records with the State Highway Patrol’s sex offender registry.

Steelman spokesman Spence Jackson turned the issue on Hulshof for failing to stop the practice of reimbursing Medicaid and Medicare recipients for sexual impotency pills back in the late 1990s when the practice started.

As a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Hulshof could have put an end to the practice years ago, Jackson said.

“It was one of those things the federal government mandates,” said Jackson, who was Blunt’s press secretary at the time of the 2005 Viagra crackdown. “Congressman Hulshof was in a powerful position to do something and he didn’t.”

Baker said the spending of federal money for Medicaid is contingent on action by the Missouri General Assembly.

“The legislature, including Sarah Steelman, approved this appropriation,” Baker said. “She can not spin her way out of that fact.”

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June 17, 2008 | Filed Under Viagra Online 
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