MADISON, Wisconsin, December 13, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Attorneys for several gender-confused Medicaid patients announced a settlement with the state of Wisconsin on Tuesday, clearing the way for gender-reassignment treatments to begin being offered at taxpayers’ expense.

Under the settlement, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services must establish a new “inclusive” policy on Medicaid coverage for transgender treatments and notify recipients that had previously been denied of their newfound eligibility, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported. Plaintiffs Cody Flack, Sara Ann Makenzie, Courtney Sherwin, and Marie Kelly will also split $840,000 in damages, and their law firms will receive $1.35 million in legal fees from the state.

The agreement settles a case brought by four gender-confused Medicaid patients against a 1997 state administrative provision that excluded “transsexual surgery” from Medicaid, which U.S. District Judge William Conley found in August constituted “sex discrimination” under the federal Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

“We applaud the Wisconsin Department of Health Services for accepting the Court’s rulings and the medical consensus that gender-confirming health care saves lives,” said lead attorney Joseph Wardenski. “We are delighted that the Court’s decision invalidating Wisconsin’s legally and medically indefensible coverage exclusion is now permanent.”

Wisconsin’s Medicaid system has an estimated $9.7 billion budget and 1.2 million enrollees, approximately 5,000 of whom are believed to have some form of gender confusion. The state argued that covering surgery for all of them could cost taxpayers as much as $2.1 million, which Conley rejected on the grounds that the estimates were well below one percent of the $3.9 billion share of Wisconsin Medicaid’s $9.7 billion annual budget.

The state also argued that transgender surgery has no proven medical benefit. A variety of scientific literature indicates that reinforcing a patient’s gender confusion rather than helping him or her overcome it fails to prevent significant emotional harm up to and including attempted suicide, with or without surgery. There is also a growing movement of former transgenders who have “de-transitioned” back to their real sex after experiencing “sex change regret.”

The case follows the Wisconsin Group Insurance Board 5-4 vote in August 2018 to cover hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery deemed “medically necessary” for public-sector employees.

The post Wisconsin Medicaid to begin funding sex-reassignment surgery after settlement appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

DES MOINES, Iowa (CN) – An Iowa judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by two transgender Iowans and a gay rights advocacy group challenging the constitutionality of a law that exempts sex-reassignment operations from coverage under the state’s Medicaid program.

Mika Covington, Aiden DeLathower aka Aiden Vasquez and One Iowa, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ Iowans, argued in their May 31 complaint that the state’s ban on Medicaid coverage of sex-reassignment surgery violates their equal protection rights under the Iowa Constitution by “intentionally singling out transgender Iowans as a class for discrimination in public accommodations through the provision of publicly funded healthcare under the Iowa Civil Rights Act.”

Polk County District Judge David Porter dismissed the lawsuit on Thursday, finding the issues raised by the plaintiffs are not ready for judicial review.

Covington and Vasquez had not yet sought or been denied Medicaid coverage, so they must first appeal the state’s Medicaid rules at the administrative level before challenging them in court, he wrote in a 13-page order.

The complaint named as defendants Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and the Iowa Department of Human Services, or DHS. A spokesman for the governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The plaintiffs were represented by Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, and John Knight of the ACLU Foundation LGBT & HIV Project.

A spokesperson for the ACLU-Iowa said the organization will now seek an emergency temporary injunction from the Iowa Supreme Court in response to Judge Porter’s dismissal of the suit.

The ACLU also released a statement Friday from Daniel Hoffman-Zinnel, executive director of One Iowa:  “No one, including transgender Iowans, should be denied the medical care they need. Being denied this medically necessary care puts the health and lives of transgender Iowans who rely on Medicaid at risk, including increased risk of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts for transgender individuals who can’t access the care their doctors prescribe. That’s why we’re appealing this decision.”

This challenge to the constitutionality of Iowa’s Medicaid rules pertaining to sex-change surgeries is the second to work its way through Iowa’s courts. In March, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the DHS regulation barring Medicaid coverage of sex-change operations violated the Iowa Civil Rights Act. But the court did not reach the constitutional question of equal-protection violations.

The Iowa General Assembly then amended the Civil Rights Act to say that the act “shall not require any state or local government unit or tax-supported district to provide for sex reassignment surgery or any other cosmetic, reconstructive, or plastic surgery procedure related to transsexualism, hermaphroditism, gender identity disorder, or body dysmorphic disorder.”

In Thursday’s ruling, Judge Porter said the Civil Rights Act amendment does not “prevent the Iowa Medicaid program from covering sex reassignment surgery or any other surgical procedure, if the program so chooses.”

Covington and Vasquez must therefore begin by appealing to the DHS, which will give the state the opportunity to reconsider whether it will provide Medicaid coverage for sex-reassignment operations in the light of new scientific evidence since the original rules were written a quarter century ago.

“Unquestionably, petitioners make compelling arguments concerning the science and treatment related to gender dysphoria,” Porter wrote. “It is precisely because those arguments are compelling and because DHS has not reviewed or studied the language of the regulation since its original adoption in 1995 that the statute allows for interested persons, such as the petitioners here, to request the adoption, amendment, or repeal of a rule.”

That gives the administrative agency “a full opportunity to amend or repeal its rules related to treatment for gender dysphoria before those issues are presented to the district court,” he wrote.

The post Judge Tosses Challenge to Iowa Ban on Medicaid for Sex Reassignments appeared first on MyMedicPlus.