WASHINGTON — The House approved a health and education spending bill yesterday for 2006 that cuts deeply into scores of programs and bars Medicare and Medicaid from covering impotence drugs such as Viagra.

The $602 billion bill, approved 250-151, is slightly more than President Bush proposed. Republicans and Democrats took two days of floor time trying to win extra money for popular programs that fall under the $142.5 billion portion of the bill that Congress controls, the balance going to mandatory programs such as Medicaid.

Only a few of those efforts were successful, including a bid Thursday to restore $100 million to public broadcasting.

The ban on impotence drugs, approved 285-121, is part of a larger debate on whether Medicare and Medicaid should cover "lifestyle drugs."

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who offered the amendment, cited Congressional Budget Office estimates that impotence drugs could cost the federal government at least $2 billion between 2006 and 2015.

"We don't force taxpayers to pay for face-lifts, weight-loss drugs, hair-growth treatment or vacations, so we should not force them to pay for sexual-performance drugs," King said. "Medicare and Medicaid were established to provide lifesaving medication for the truly needy."

Earlier, the Appropriations Committee added a provision to ban coverage of impotence drugs for convicted sex offenders. Recent studies have shown that hundreds of sex offenders in numerous states had obtained such drugs under the Medicaid program.

Opponents of the King amendment, including Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., who chairs the Medicare subcommittee on the Ways and Means panel, said men who lost sexual function because of prostate cancer or other diseases have a legitimate claim to medications such as Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.

The Washington delegation split on the amendment, with Republican Cathy McMorris joining Democrats Brian Baird, Norm Dicks, Jay Inslee and Jim McDermott in voting to pay for the drugs and Democrats Rick Larsen and Adam Smith joining Republicans Doc Hastings and Dave Reichert in voting to stop paying for the drugs.

The spending bill, which the Senate has yet to act on, pays for federal education programs, including Pell Grants, special-education grants, teacher training, Head Start, and basic skill assessments. It also pays for an array of medical research and health-care programs, from Medicaid to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to the Ryan White AIDS program, to numerous public-health initiatives, including bioterrorism preparation.

But new demands, including $870 million to administer the new Medicare prescription-drug program, forced cuts in scores of programs. The bill also provides money for two big priorities of the conservative movement: faith-based community outreach and abstinence education.

But a budget squeeze forced the termination of 57 programs and froze or reduced funding to many others.

Democrats sought to depict the bill as the outgrowth of misplaced Republican priorities. Citing the billions in tax cuts that Congress has enacted under the Bush presidency, Rep. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said, "It is inexcusable, and I find it immoral, that the first thing that goes is our investment in our children's future."

Menendez singled out education cuts. He noted that the bill cuts funding for initiatives created under the No Child Left Behind Act, one of Bush's proudest achievements, by more than $800 million from last year.

Noting that 1.7 million fewer disadvantaged children will receive after-school care under the bill and that it provides only half the increase promised for the maximum Pell grant, Rep. David Obey, Wis., ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said, "This bill just does not measure up to our national obligations."

The frustration was bipartisan. Many Republicans offered amendments or spoke out against cuts. Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., complained that the only federal program for disadvantaged gifted students was slotted for elimination. He noted that the program reached 2 million children nationwide for about $11 million a year.

In the Washington delegation, Baird, Inslee, Larsen, McDermott and Smith voted to reject the spending bill; Democrat Norm Dicks joined Republicans Doc Hastings, Cathy McMorris and Dave Reichert in voting for it.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.