There are good reasons why minors, generally regarded as people under the age of 18, aren't allowed to do certain things. They generally lack the judgement, the moral clarity, and the experience to make certain decisions. That is why they cannot sign contracts, buy firearms or a bottle of booze, or vote.
The left, on the other hand, seems perfectly all right with minors making one class of irreversible decision: "Gender-affirming" medical treatments. Now, though, the Trump administration has slammed the door on a source of funding for this, as the Medicaid program will no longer pay for these treatments.
American taxpayers will no longer be on the hook for child sex-change hormones or surgeries, as a key Trump administration agency announced Tuesday that Medicaid will stop funding such procedures and therapies.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz tells Fox News Digital that the decision to implement a rule pulling the funding is "consistent with [the Trump administration's] commitment to protect children from experimental and life-altering sex-rejecting procedures that carry serious long-term health risks and lack sufficiently reliable evidence of clinical benefit."
CMS, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), says taxpayer-funded Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) will also cease coverage of sex-change hormones and surgeries.
Mental healthcare for patients diagnosed with gender dysphoria, presumably therapy rather than surgery or hormone treatments, will still be covered under Medicaid.
There are a number of problems with allowing these treatments for minors, not least of which is that they are liable to be irreversible and debilitating.
CMS and HHS say such procedures "can result in irreversible damage, including infertility, impaired sexual function, diminished bone density, altered brain development, and other lasting physiological effects."
If anything, CMS and HHS are downplaying the problem here. The hormone treatments alone can have these effects, as well as outright sterility. But the surgeries? Aside from the blatant violation of primum non nocere (first, do no harm), these surgeries can lead to permanent scarring, infection, and require constant, lifetime follow-up treatments, all for a poor approximation of the real thing. That's not what the delivery of healthcare is supposed to be about. The point is to heal, not to harm; this is an ethical principle of medicine that dates back (at least) to Hippocrates.
Adults may do as they please, if they can find a doctor who isn't too concerned with almost 2,500 years of medical ethics, and if they pay for it themselves. But children cannot give informed consent for these irreversible treatments, and we've seen too many cases where a parent's motivations were suspect. I've written many times about how, in some circles (I'm looking at you, Hollywood), having a "transgender kid" is a sort of weird status symbol. I've also written repeatedly about how someone claiming to have a "transgender kid" is much like someone claiming to have a vegan cat; the one thing that's for sure is that this wasn't the choice of the kid or the cat.
We haven't yet seen the last of these controversial treatments, for adults or for kids. But now, with this policy change, we can at least breathe a little easier, knowing that we won't be asked to pick up the tab for it through the Medicaid program.
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
Help us continue to report on President Trump's successes. Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member