Taxpayers in Pennsylvania were billed more than $2.5 million via Medicaid to pay for “irreversible sex change interventions” on children between 2019 and 2023, according to the organization Do No Harm.
The Philly Leader reported that Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania (CHOP) and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh were both named to Do No Harm’s “Dirty Dozen” list, consisting of the “12 worst offending children’s hospitals promoting sex change treatments for minors.”
The Stop the Harm database, which is a project of Do No Harm, reported that hospitals in the Keystone State saw 822 minors who were “sex change patients” including 316 surgery patients and 518 children who were administered hormone and puberty blockers.
125 of those interventions were paid for by the Medicaid program at a cost of $2, 527,715.
Taxpayer funding of these types of medical procedures has been in the spotlight as presidential candidate Kamala Harris has openly advocated for so-called “transgender” surgeries for inmates and illegal immigrants.
Given Pennsylvania’s status as a crucial swing state, the issue of taxpayer-funded sex change interventions for minors is mobilizing various political action groups.
CatholicVote has aired an ad in Pennsylvania directly targeting Harris for her support of these procedures, saying, “Kamala Harris supports these taxpayer funded sex change operations. A vote for Harris is a vote for medical experiments. On kids.”
Harris isn’t the only one taking heat for supporting the use of Pennsylvania taxpayer funds to advance gender ideology.
U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) has also been criticized for voting to provide $400,000 in taxpayer money to fund an LGBTQ health and wellness center in Philadelphia that provides hormone therapy and sex-change surgeries for children.
The Pennsylvania Family Council is also sounding the alarm over the drastic increase in the number of children 12 and under who are receiving taxpayer-funded “sex reassignment and transition-related services and drugs” in Pennsylvania.
According the the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, in 2021, there were 197 children aged 12 and under that received taxpayer-funded “sex reassignment and transition related services and drugs” in Pennsylvania.
In 2015, the total was 17.
(And those are just the ones using taxpayer-funded insurance.)
Children in PA and across the nation are being "treated like guinea pigs for unproven, and sometimes dangerous, medical experiments." - @ChoooCole
#StopTheHarm
— Pennsylvania Family Council (@PFIpolicy) October 8, 2024
Nationally, Do No Harm reports that 13,994 children received sex change related treatments between 2019 and 2023, including 5,747 sex change surgeries performed on minor, and 62,682 hormone and puberty blockers prescriptions written for 8,579 pediatric patients.
The organization reports that these procedures represent a lucrative venture for the hospitals that offer them, stating that there was, “At least $119,791,202 made from sex change treatments performed on minors.”
