These are some of the more salacious procedures that taxpayers in Washington State pay for.
In his most recent review of state Medicaid expenses, Auditor Brian Sonntag found thousands of questionable expenditures in the 2004 fiscal year … Each year, the state and federal government spends more than $3 billion through Medicaid to pay for health care of the poor and disabled …Sonntag said the evidence in the report’s small sampling of the entire Medicaid budget indicates that the state could be spending tens of millions of dollars on questionable procedures.
State Medicaid Director Doug Porter responds:
“[M]edical necessity is a term that is, as we speak, is undergoing revision. … There are many things that we have traditionally paid for that were deemed medically necessary that we are calling into question on a more frequent basis.” But a sex-change operation still could be covered by Medicaid. “Gender dysphoria is the diagnosis, the treatment for which is gender reassignment,” Porter said. “Some physician has determined that it’s a man who really should be a woman and they are suffering psychological effects of this condition, and the only correction to restore them to a higher function is a sexual reassignment.”
Article here.