CEC Condemns Passage of Medicaid Coverage Ban for Trans Youths' Healthcare

WASHINGTON, DC — After the House of Representatives passed a bill to prohibit Medicaid from covering the cost of medically-necessary healthcare for young transgender people, Congressional Equality Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Takano (CA-39) released the following statement:

“As millions of Americans lose health insurance because of the Republican health care crisis, the Republican majority in Congress decided it was more important to rip away medical care from families with transgender children and interfere with families’ private medical decisions,” said Rep. Mark Takano, Chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus. “No parent should ever have to worry that their child will not be able to access medically-necessary healthcare because of politicians in D.C. I urge my Democratic colleagues in the Senate to block this cruel bill so families with transgender children can make medical decisions without government interference."

H.R. 498, the so-called “Do No Harm in Medicaid Act,” would prohibit Medicaid from expending funds on puberty blockers, gender-affirming hormone treatment, and gender-affirming surgeries to individuals under 18 for the purpose of “intentionally changing the body of such individual…to no longer correspond to the individual’s sex.” It specifically exempts puberty blockers for cisgender young people experiencing precocious puberty, surgeries on intersex infants and youth’s genitalia, and procedures to affirm a person’s sex assigned at birth if they previously received treatments to affirm their gender identity.