State's taxpayers paid for a sex change

[Angel Heart]

State's taxpayers paid for a sex change

State's taxpayers paid for a sex change
Auditor questions spending priorities

By CHRIS McGANN
P-I CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT

OLYMPIA -- At a time when lawmakers struggled to find money for health care for the state's most vulnerable people, Washington taxpayers footed the bill for a sex-change operation, penile implants, breast augmentation and ear piercings.

In his most recent review of state Medicaid expenses, Auditor Brian Sonntag found thousands of questionable expenditures in the 2004 fiscal year. One in particular jumped off the page.

Medicaid paid $9,549.92 to surgically transform a woman into a man.

"You pick up the paper or watch the evening news and you see senior citizens who can't get medications of diabetes and things," Sonntag said. "And here you see tax dollars being used for things like this, it makes you ask, 'Why?' "

 

[chanel]

Gee whiz. And think of all those working Americans who had to pay for their own nipple piercings. Need a boob job? Quit your job and go on welfare.

This is exactly the kind of waste we will see under Obamacare.

 

[KittenKoder]

The truly sad part of this, that kind of surgery, cosmetic, should not cost nearly as much as they charge. It's all fucked up ... and socializing it won't help, that will just give the doctors more control over what they charge.