DeSantis' administration moves ahead on denying Medicaid coverage for transgender care

[Eugene]

Source: Miami Herald

DeSantis’ administration moves ahead on denying Medicaid coverage for transgender care

Jim Saunders
Fri, June 17, 2022, 11:21 AM·3 min read

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration moved forward Friday with a proposal that would deny Medicaid coverage for treatments such as puberty-blocking medication and hormone therapy for transgender people.

The state Agency for Health Care Administration, which runs most of the Medicaid program, published a proposed rule and set a July 8 hearing on the issue. National and state legal and LGBTQ-advocacy groups have vowed to fight the proposal.

The issue centers on treatment for gender dysphoria, which the federal government defines as clinically “significant distress that a person may feel when sex or gender assigned at birth is not the same as their identity.”

Under the proposed rule, the Medicaid program would not cover puberty-blocking medication, hormones and hormone “antagonists,” sex-reassignment surgeries and any “other procedures that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics.”

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Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/desantis-administration-moves-ahead-denying-152103587.html