HB283, the “Trans Health Equity Act,” requires Medicaid to provide coverage for “gender-affirming treatment” to all “transgender, nonbinary, intersex, two-spirit, and other gender diverse individuals.”
The Senate passed HB283 on March 31, 2023, by a vote of 31 to 13. We have assigned pluses to the nays because health care, let alone sex mutilation, is not the role of government. No person has a right to harm another using the pretext of “trans health” or LGBTQ+ ideology, and Medicaid, like other so-called ‘entitlement programs,’ is financed by immoral and anti-constitutional forms of taxation (e.g., personal or corporate income taxes) that take from citizens the wages they have duly earned. Not only do both the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment affirm the basic humanity (i.e., right to life and limb) of every person, but Medicaid remains an ever-expanding and unsustainable Federal-State program that is not authorized under Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution.