Utah and MO Defend State Sovereignty in Healthcare
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey are leading a seven-state challenge to a Biden Administration rule requiring doctors to provide – and states to pay for – experimental gender transition procedures. Similar rules were enjoined by federal courts in 2019 and 2022.
On May 6, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published a final rule that “forces doctors to perform, refer for, or affirm harmful gender-transition procedures and forces state to pay for these dangerous procedures in state health plans; [and] threatens to punish doctors and States who do not comply with the mandate by imposing huge financial penalties and excluding them from federally funded healthcare programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP),” according to information provided by the attorneys general.
In their brief, the States argue that the HHS rule “violates the Affordable Care Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, the structural principles of federalism, and the freedom of speech.”
The State of Utah contends that it has the sovereign authority to promulgate standards of care for licensed physicians, to determine what medical procedures are reasonable for purposes of Medicaid coverage, and to decide what medical services should be covered by its employee health insurance policies. As of February 2024, 346,761 Utahns are enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP.
Joining Utah and Missouri on this challenge are the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Idaho, and Arkansas.
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