Posted on 03/13/2019 10:49:45 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Iowa taxpayers will be forced to fund gender reassignment surgery through Medicaid after the state Supreme Court ruled that such procedures are “medically necessary” for transgender individuals.
On Friday, Iowa’s Supreme Court ruled that transgender people can now use Medicaid for “gender-affirming surgeries,” overturning the state’s previously held administrative code regarding Medicaid, which classifies transition-related surgeries as "cosmetic, reconstructive or plastic surgery" and explicitly bans "surgeries for the purpose of sex reassignment,” the Des Moines Register reports.
The justices agreed with a district judge's ruling that the rules contradicted protections in the Iowa Civil Rights Act, which added gender identity to the state's list of protected classes.
That law's "gender identity classification encompasses transgender individuals — especially those who have gender dysphoria — because discrimination against these individuals is based on the nonconformity between their gender identity and biological sex," Justice Susan Christensen wrote for the court.
The ruling ends a two-year legal battle between EerieAnna Good and Carol Ann Beal, transgender individuals backed by the ACLU, and the Iowa Department of Human Services. The two individuals had sued the DHS for its policy against funding transition surgeries, calling it “discriminatory” and claiming the surgery was “medically necessary to treat their gender dysphoria.”
“The record evidence shows that this surgery is medically necessary,” John Knight, an attorney with the ACLU representing Beal and Good, told justices when the case was argued. “It’s really lifesaving treatment for a number of individuals.”
However, Iowa Assistant Attorney General Matthew Gillespie, who represented the DHS, had argued that the ACLU attorneys could not prove that the measure was discriminatory in nature. He said the case was really about whether the state denied coverage for surgeries meant to treat psychological problems rather than those that are medically necessary.
The DHS also resisted on the grounds of the high cost of transition-related care, explaining that its regulation against such coverage "serves the purpose of conserving limited state resources." The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery prices the full suite of procedures for transgender individuals at more than $100,000.
The Supreme Court's decision upheld a lower court ruling to undo the ban, which had been appealed by the state. According to USA Today, the decision is the first by a state's highest court holding that transgender people have the right to use public money for transition-related surgeries.
While the ACLU praised Friday’s ruling as a “landmark win,” Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., told The Christian Post that “political correctness, not the law or medicine, dictated the ruling forcing taxpayers to fund gender reassignment surgery through Medicaid.”
“Iowa’s regulatory exclusion of procedures which are ‘performed primarily for psychological purposes’ rather than for ‘restoring bodily function’ fully justified the exclusion of such surgery from Medicaid coverage,” Sprigg argued. “All such ‘cosmetic’ procedures were excluded from coverage—gender reassignment surgery is merely one example that falls under that more general exclusion. There was no ‘discrimination’ based on ‘gender identity’—it was the nature of the procedure, not the identity of the person, that was at issue.”
Sprigg told CP it is “unfortunate” that the court did not even consider the 2016 decision by the federal Centers from Medicare and Medicaid Services, which concluded that “there is not enough high-quality evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes.”
Cloward-Piven at work to overwhelm the system.
For the children.
BS - these are elective surgeries at ALL times.
By this courts idiotic reasoning than the fact that I don’t have muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger is a health risk and I deserve Medicare paid surgery to save my life.
Wanted: Trump-appointed judges...
So taxpayers get to pay for mutilating the mentally ill.
Who ithe Nazi now???
Liberal judges again forcing people to endorse perversion? It’s time to eliminate that variable in the equation. Civilization demands it.
Appeal please.
such insanity must come from eating too much corn?
On the way to US suicide.
Blame the politicians, the Legislature.
There is no way to predict when one day our society just cannot withstand all of this BS anymore.
And the state of Iowa plays such a pivotal role in the process of choosing who will be our nest president. Yet Iowa is not a mirror image of any part of the USA. Iowa is not a valid sample of anything but Iowa. The same can be said for New Hampshire. There has to be a better way.
There is a better way. A way that does not involve popular elections decided by a majority of the lowest common denonimators.
Sex reassignment surgery: $100,000
http://money.com/money/4092680/transgender-surgery-costs/
plus annual hormone therapy: $2,000
Lifetime cost of HIV: $400,000
https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/programresources/guidance/costeffectiveness/index.html
Nothing’s too good for these people.
30 percent of the population cannot afford the premiums and deductibles of bronze plans, but how many of them are LBGTQetc?
Taxation without representation. When will someone challenge it?
If men can have breast augmentation, there is NO WAY that real women won’t end up suing for the same right. Both can claim distress at their unhappiness with their breasts. They cannot give this right to only pretend women.
Insanity runs amuck.
They’re cutting Medicare while inflicting this on taxpayers?
Sounds like a case where a bunch of Judges very badly need @$$ whippings, and then get thrown off the bench.
The proper response to this sort of idiocy is "F*** You! We Defy you!"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.