Five Medicaid healthcare insurers have violated Florida’s rule against using taxpayer funds to provide transgender treatments, and the state is now fining them for the action. It’s the first time any state has taken this step in regard to gender transition coverage.
Among the procedures one of the plans covered was a double mastectomy on a 16-year-old girl. The other plans paid for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors. Florida health officials sent out letters informing the providers they were being fined over the violation late Thursday.
“These plans recklessly continued to cover these services with permanent, harmful effects, after the rule was adopted,” Jason Weida, Secretary of the Agency for Healthcare Administration, told The Daily Wire news podcast Morning Wire. “[They] will not stand in the way of our fight to protect the innocence of Florida’s kids.”
