Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program will no longer pay for gender-transition surgeries or hormone treatments for minors, the Trump administration announced Tuesday, a policy shift the White House said Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was directed to carry out.
"We are not going to pay for our innocent children to undergo these barbaric surgeries and practices, which result in unthinkable and irreversible harm to their young bodies," Trump said in a statement. Oz called the procedures "sex-rejecting" and "experimental interventions that pose serious risks and convey no proven benefits." Under the new CMS policy, Medicaid and CHIP will stop covering the treatments for beneficiaries under 19. Trump said pressure from his administration had already led dozens of U.S. hospitals to end or restrict such care for minors over the past year and a half; Children's Hospital Colorado is among the systems that recently confirmed halting the treatments in response to earlier federal action.
A parallel fight over vaccines
The Medicaid announcement came two days after Trump, flanked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., signed a separate executive order directing federal health agencies to pare the list of universally recommended childhood vaccines from 18 diseases to 11, and to explore splitting the combined measles-mumps-rubella shot into three separate doses. The American Academy of Pediatrics has said developing standalone MMR vaccines could take a decade, and the CDC has said no published evidence supports splitting the shot. Kennedy and Trump repeated unsupported claims linking vaccines to autism during the signing.
Medical groups pushed back on both fronts. "This executive order is part of a troubling pattern by the administration to attempt to unilaterally change vaccine guidance, particularly for children, rather than relying on the transparent, scientific review that has guided the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule for decades," American College of Physicians president Dr. Jan K. Carney said. Even Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician and Republican, broke with the White House: "The President does not have the expertise to make these changes. Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism."
The Trump administration is terrorizing trans youth and their families with these kinds of actions, and it has to stop.
— Kelley Robinson, president, Human Rights Campaign
The Medicaid change extends a campaign the administration has waged since taking office, including a legal push, still working through the courts, to compel providers to turn over records on pediatric gender-transition care. Major medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have historically held that treatment decisions should rest with patients, families and physicians rather than federal mandate, and some state attorneys general — New York's among them — have already warned hospitals against suspending care solely in response to federal pressure. Legal challenges to both the Medicaid rule and the vaccine order are considered likely, though neither is expected to change vaccine access or Medicaid coverage immediately while cases proceed.
