The Trump administration released a final rule prohibiting the use of federal Medicaid dollars for so-called gender-affirming care for minors. The rule also blocks the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) plan from paying for gender-affirming surgeries.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement that officials “are ending federal taxpayer funding for sex-rejecting procedures on children. These interventions carry serious risks and can cause irreversible harm. The federal government will no longer use Medicaid and CHIP dollars to fund procedures that fail to meet the evidentiary standard our children deserve.”
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz similarly declared that children “deserve our protection, not experimental interventions that pose serious risks and convey no proven benefits.”
“By cutting off federal funds for these sex-rejecting procedures, we’re following the science, saving taxpayer dollars, and, most importantly, protecting children from potentially irreversible harm so they can truly flourish,” he said.
Last year, New York Attorney General Letitia James led states in suing HHS over actions that would prohibit hospitals from receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding if they engage in transgender surgeries for children.
The filing asserts that Kennedy and HHS “cannot circumvent statutorily mandated notice and comment requirements by changing substantive legal standards by executive fiat.” It states, “The Kennedy Declaration has immediate, significant, and harmful impacts on the Plaintiff States as administrators of state Medicaid programs and as regulators of the practice of medicine” and “directly harms Plaintiff States’ abilities to administer approved state Medicaid plans in accordance with state laws that protect and guarantee medically necessary gender-affirming care.”
