BATON ROUGE, LA – Attorney General Jeff Landry has joined
Louisiana to a 17-state legal brief supporting Florida’s healthcare regulation
that denies Medicaid coverage for gender transitioning procedures.
“States have the right to regulate medicine and determine
appropriate treatments for Medicaid coverage; and our tax dollars should not be
spent on life-altering and damaging experimental medical treatments,” said
Attorney General Landry. “Florida’s comprehensive review does not support the
use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and reassignment surgeries as safe
and effective treatments for gender dysphoria; and the Sunshine State should be
allowed to follow the science.”
While the plaintiffs challenging Florida’s regulation relied
heavily on medical interest groups to argue that transitioning treatments are
supported by medical opinion, the multi-state legal brief points out that these
groups are at odds with European governmental healthcare authorities that have,
like Florida, openly assessed the evidence base for the treatments. After doing
so, the brief notes, healthcare authorities in the United Kingdom, Sweden,
Finland, and Norway all “called for drastically curtailing the availability of
transitioning treatments for minors.”
The brief also argues that medical interest groups such as
the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Professional Association for
Transgender Health operate as self-interested advocacy organizations
when it comes to transitioning treatments. The brief highlights a number of
episodes that reveal that these medical organizations have suppressed dissent
and rebuffed calls from doctors for a transparent review of their policies.
“The interest groups do not represent ‘medical opinion,’” the brief concludes,
“just an outspoken slice of it.”
Attorney General Landry has been involved in multiple
efforts related to this issue, including a major legal victory over
Governor John Bel Edwards. That defeat of the Governor’s unconstitutional
Executive Order JBE 2016-11 not only ensured the separation of powers, but also
protected taxpayers from the huge financial burdens associated with creating a
new protected class by executive fiat.
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The brief was filed by Attorney General Landry, Alabama Attorney General
Steve Marshall, and their colleagues from Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa,
Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia.