The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration reworked the state's Medicaid rules Thursday to prohibit health care providers from billing the taxpayer-funded program for gender-affirming medical care.
According to Politico, the new rules state that the $36.2 billion program does not cover treatments such as puberty blockers, surgical procedures, and hormone therapies.
The move comes as Florida has increasingly attempted to prevent young people from accessing such therapies.
The rule change will take effect Aug. 21 and is GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis' latest effort to control transgender medical care, according to Politico.
Florida's medical board voted last Friday to begin the rule-making process that could lead to restrictions on gender-affirming care for youth.
An alliance of LGBTQ and health rights groups said the rule will deny transgender Floridians access to critical medical care.
"Ignoring thousands of public comments and expert testimony, Florida's AHCA has finalized a rule that will deny Medicaid coverage for all medically necessary gender-affirming care for both youth and adults," a statement from the group said. "This discriminatory and medically unsound rule will take effect on August 21, 2022, putting transgender people in jeopardy of losing access to critical gender-affirming health care services."
Florida's Medicaid regulator began moving to ban the program from covering gender-affirming treatments when it published a report in June stating that there was not enough evidence to prove that such treatments improved the health of patients. More than 150 people came out to a public hearing the agency held on the rule change on a Friday afternoon in June, Politico reports.
Florida's Health Department has also accused the federal Department of Health and Human Services and the American Academy of Pediatrics of misinforming the public about the safety of the treatments.
While the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association support transgender medical care for adults and adolescents, experts say such care for children rarely includes surgery. For children, doctors are more likely to present counseling, social transitioning, and hormone replacement therapy.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has increased its efforts to protect transgender youth amid an expansion in states banning transgender girls participating in women's and girls' sports and proposed legislation seeking to prevent minors from accessing gender-affirming care.
"It is critically important for every child to have access to quality, comprehensive and evidence-based care — transgender and gender-diverse youth are no exception," Lee Savio Beers, American Academy of Pediatrics immediate past president in a statement earlier this year.
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