Trump and Pence Target Trans Healthcare—And Their LGBT Discrimination Plans Don’t End There
The Trump-Pence administration today took another step toward creating two separate and unequal healthcare systems in America: one for straight people protected by law, and another in which transgender people, women, and gays can be refused service, discriminated against, and thrown out on the street, even if their lives are in danger.
The proposed new rule undoes an Obama-era policy that protected discrimination against gay and transgender people as part of the Affordable Care Act’s provisions against sex discrimination.
Under the new proposed rule, it would be perfectly legal for a doctor, hospital, insurance plan, or pharmacist to refuse to cover transgender people, to provide coverage for gender-confirmation hormones or surgery, to fill prescriptions, or to treat trans people in emergency rooms.