With all the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth by the Democrats and Chuck Schumer, as they deny that illegal aliens are receiving government healthcare, you may have missed one of their healthcare proposals lurking in the shadows. It’s hidden in plain sight in their more than $1 trillion spending demand: “gender-affirming care.”
President Trump’s signed an EO in January to withhold federal funding from any facility that offered “trans” interventions for children, but Schumer is trying to get around that:
President Donald Trump recently pointed to another concerning aspect of the Schumer bill, stating that it would ‘force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors.’ By permanently extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidy regime, the Schumer bill would indeed send federal funds to insurance plans that cover ‘gender reassignment’ procedures for adults and children alike. Several states require all insurers to cover such procedures, meaning that the taxpayer funds included in the Schumer bill would subsidize plans covering them.
It gets worse. The Movement Advancement Project (MAP) via The Federalist explains that the projected expense for taxpayers would be substantial:
The Movement Advancement Project notes that 24 states have ‘nondiscrimination’ provisions in their insurance markets. In these states, insurers that cover procedures like mastectomies for breast cancer must also cover the same procedure as part of so-called ‘gender affirming care.’
When individuals receive Obamacare Exchange subsidies to defray the cost of their premiums for these insurance policies, taxpayers are funding these treatments. And if Congress extends the enhanced Exchange subsidies — as Democrats have shut down the government to force Republicans to do — they will throw more taxpayer dollars toward funding these treatments.
A large part of the problem is that while there’s an EO in place to protect children, future Democrat administrations could easily nullify it, if the courts don’t do so first. Trump’s EO must be enshrined into law through legislative action to ensure that there is at least some protection for children against these disgraceful experiments. We cannot concede on Schumer’s demands.
Meanwhile, Democrat-controlled states are forging ahead. In 2022, California passed legislation intended to indoctrinate aspiring medical professionals into transgender ideology—though it only took effect this year—which “requires continuing medical education courses and all health plans to engage in ‘cultural competency training.’” In this case, it’s code for pro-trans language. Here are some of the legislated requirements:
Information about communicating more effectively across gender identities, including TGI [transgender, gender diverse, or intersex] -inclusive terminology, using people’s correct names and pronouns, even when they are not reflected in records or legal documents; avoiding language, whether verbal or nonverbal, that demeans, ridicules, or condemns TGI individuals; and avoiding making assumptions about gender identity by using gender-neutral language and avoiding language that presumes all individuals are heterosexual, cisgender or gender conforming, or nonintersex.
Colorado is also forcing the transgender agenda on its constituents and insurers:
Take Colorado, which requires all insurers to cover so-called ‘gender affirming care’ as an essential health benefit. The state’s Division of Insurance lists all the surgical and hormonal treatments that insurers cover. The list, which runs the gamut from facial feminization to gluteal implantation and implantation of testicular prostheses, includes treatments that many Americans would at best find wasteful and at worst consider morally objectionable and offensive.
Of particular note: Nothing on the Colorado website indicates that these treatments are only available to adults who have reached age 18, suggesting that insurers may be covering — and taxpayers may be paying for — procedures performed on minor children.
It’s clear what the Democrats are doing, and in case you think that our “elite” professional organizations will stop them, knowing that these procedures are abhorrent and immoral, think again. The American Medical Association caved to transgender ideology long ago, in spite of reputable studies that contradict their observations and conclusions, partially listed here:
Transgender individuals in the US are up to three times more likely than the general population to report or be diagnosed with mental health disorders, with as many as 41.5 percent reporting at least one diagnosis of a mental health or substance use disorder: • Over a third of transgender individuals suffer a major depressive episode in their lifetimes; • 20.2 percent have been diagnosed with suicidality in the past 30 days; • 7.9 percent have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder in the past six months; • 9.8 percent have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in the past six months; and • 15.2 percent have been diagnosed with a substance use disorder in the past year. The increased prevalence of these mental health conditions is widely thought to be a consequence of minority stress, the chronic stress from coping with societal stigma and discrimination because of one’s gender identity and expression. Indeed, gender-based discrimination affecting access to services is a strong predictor of suicide risk among transgender persons.
The key goal should be to pass legislation that echoes Trump’s EO, and further hold states accountable for allowing “trans” procedures on children. (Obamacare should also be repealed.)
We will have to be the ones to protect our children and save ourselves.
Image from ChatGPT.