By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano at last year's Democratic National Convention
Republicans are advancing a "cruel reconciliation bill," Equality Caucus Chair Mark Takano says.
The Congressional Equality Caucus Wednesday denounced the advancement of a budget reconciliation bill that would make deep cuts to Medicaid and bar Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program from paying for gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter.
“Republicans have made themselves crystal-clear: They’re more than happy to cut Medicaid and strip people of their health insurance in order to pay for tax breaks for their billionaire friends,” said a statement from U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, the gay California Democrat who chairs the caucus. “Republicans’ cruel reconciliation bill restricts transgender people’s access to medically necessary and lifesaving health care — not to save costs, but to distract their base from the fact that the rest of their bill will take health care away from millions of Americans.”
“As costs continue to rise, Congress should be focused on helping working families, not cutting Medicaid,” he continued. “Regardless of how anyone may feel about the health care transgender people may seek, we can all agree that patients should have the right to make personal medical decisions with their families and doctors without government interference. Transgender people, like all people, deserve to be able to access the health care they need — and no American should lose their health care to pay for billionaires’ tax cuts.”
He also posted this on X, formerly Twitter:
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce passed the budget reconciliation text by a vote of 30-24 nays after a marathon meeting. The committee’s version of the bill contains two provisions that target trans people’s access to medically necessary care. One prohibits Medicaid and CHIP funding for puberty blockers, gender-affirming hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgeries for trans people under 18. Surgeries are rarely performed on minors.
The other amends the Affordable Care Act to prohibit items and services furnished for a “gender transition procedure” (including puberty blockers, gender-affirming hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgeries) from being covered as an essential health benefit. This will affect both plans offered on the ACA exchanges and other plans that are subject to the essential health benefits requirements.
Medicaid is the joint federal-state program covering health care for low-income Americans. The Children’s Health Insurance Program, also a joint federal-state effort, covers care for children in families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford private coverage.
Republicans want to extend Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and greatly reduce Medicaid and other assistance programs. GOPers in the House of Representatives have failed to agree on many portions of the bill, but they want to bring a bill to a final floor vote by Memorial Day, NBC News reports.
“Overall, the legislation is projected by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to save $715 billion and lead to 8.6 million fewer people with health care coverage,” NBC notes. “That has caused tension between politically vulnerable Republicans, who say they oppose any benefit cuts, and hard-liners who want more aggressive structural changes to lower long-term Medicaid spending.”
Republicans have only a slight majority in the House, so the final bill will fail if more than three Republicans oppose it, as all Democrats are expected to do. In the Energy and Commerce Hearing, many Democrats on the committee spoke out against Medicaid cuts and displayed pictures of people who will lose their health care coverage. Protesters against the cuts also disrupted the meeting briefly.
At least one Republican in the U.S. Senate opposes the reconciliation bill — because he thinks it doesn’t cut spending enough. At a Politico event Wednesday, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin likened the “big, beautiful bill” promised by Trump to the Titanic. “I think that’s going down because I think I have enough colleagues in the Senate that this has resonated with, that say, ‘Yeah, we have to return to a reasonable pre-pandemic spending,’” he said. Johnson wants several smaller bills with deeper cuts.
