Source: lifesitenews.com<\/p>\n
MADISON, Wisconsin, December 13, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) \u2013 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\u2019 expense.<\/p>\n
Under the settlement, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services must establish a new \u201cinclusive\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
The agreement settles a case brought by four gender-confused Medicaid patients against a 1997 state administrative provision that excluded \u201ctranssexual surgery\u201d from Medicaid, which U.S. District Judge William Conley found in August constituted \u201csex discrimination\u201d under the federal Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe applaud the Wisconsin Department of Health Services for accepting the Court\u2019s rulings and the medical consensus that gender-confirming health care saves lives,\u201d said lead attorney Joseph Wardenski. \u201cWe are delighted that the Court\u2019s decision invalidating Wisconsin\u2019s legally and medically indefensible coverage exclusion is now permanent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wisconsin\u2019s 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\u2019s $9.7 billion annual budget.<\/p>\n
The state also argued that transgender surgery has no proven medical benefit. A variety of scientific literature indicates that reinforcing a patient\u2019s 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 \u201cde-transitioned\u201d back to their real sex after experiencing \u201csex change regret.\u201d<\/p>\n
The case follows the Wisconsin Group Insurance Board 5-4 vote in August 2018 to cover hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery deemed \u201cmedically necessary\u201d for public-sector employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1159,1277,166,584,2560],"class_list":["post-3445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sex-reassignment","tag-medicaid","tag-sex-reassignment-2","tag-surgery","tag-treatments","tag-wisconsin"],"yoast_head":"\n