(CNN) — The Trump administration on Tuesday finalized a rule that will bar Medicaid from covering gender identity healthcare for children enrolled in the government’s low-income insurance program.
The new policy prohibits states from using federal Medicaid funds to pay for any gender identity care for enrollees under 18, marking the administration’s latest effort to restrict youth access to transgender healthcare.
President Donald Trump celebrated the move in a Truth Social post, touting it as necessary to crack down on “barbaric surgeries and practices, which result in unthinkable and irreversible harm to their young bodies.”
“Just think about all the young, innocent, and perhaps confused children who will be spared!” Trump wrote on social media.
The president has sought to make transgender care a central issue in the run-up to the midterms, frequently describing such gender identity healthcare procedures in graphic terms and claiming, without evidence, that swaths of children are being pressured to secretly transition without their parents’ knowledge.
Democrats and a broad range of medical organizations have denounced the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict transgender healthcare procedures as harmful and counterproductive, warning that it will further jeopardize children’s health.
The administration last year floated the potential for a wider effort to restrict gender identity healthcare for children, including withholding federal funds from hospitals and doctors that continue to offer the procedures.
But the rule finalized Tuesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services instead targets coverage provided to low-income enrollees that is funded in part by the federal government.
Under the new policy, states that continue to provide transgender care through Medicaid and CHIP would need to finance it themselves, without the aid of federal money that helps pay for a significant share of the insurance programs. In a statement, CMS said that the funding ban would not apply to mental health services for children.
The rule is set to take effect on October 13, according to CMS. For those children who are currently receiving gender identity care, federal funds will remain available for six months to allow for a “tapering off” period.
The-CNN-Wire
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