Healthcare Professionals:
Protect Trans Healthcare in CHIP and Medicaid!

  

We need your help to protect transgender healthcare coverage in CHIP and Medical Assistance (Medicaid).

On Monday, November 20, 2017, HB 1933 was introduced and passed by the House Health Committee. This bill will BAN healthcare coverage for trans children and teens in CHIP and all those in Medicaid in Pennsylvania. We expect the House to vote on this bill as soon as Tuesday, December 5th.

This cruel action would be devastating to trans Pennsylvanians who are on CHIP or Medicaid. Since July 2016, CHIP has included coverage for gender-related healthcare, including medically necessary mental health services and hormones. If this amended bill becomes law, it would cut off trans youth on CHIP from vital healthcare. That is unconscionable.

You can view the bill that would ban trans healthcare coverage here.

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!

It is highly urgent that we demonstrate support from the healthcare community in Pennsylvania.

Please sign the the statement below and encourage those in your networks to do the same. 

We plan to share this statement and it signatories with members of the General Assembly. Your contact information and institutional affiliation will not be shared publicly, unless you later give us permission to do so. Here is a printer-friendly version of the letter.

Please sign this letter ASAP. We are accepting responses on a rolling basis. The first draft of this letter will be sent to House members on Tuesday, December 5th at 9:00am.

UPDATE 12/1: We now have received over 100 signatories – doctors, nurses, physician assistants, therapists, social workers, and more. Please continue to share with your colleagues and follow up to ensure they have signed on.

UPDATE 12/4: We now have received over 170 signatories. Keep sharing through your networks!

Questions? Contact us at info@payouthcongress.org. This letter is supported by the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Pennsylvania Youth Congress.

 


 

Members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly,

As healthcare professionals, we are dedicated to Healthy People 2020’s vision of “the attainment of a high quality of health for all people.” It’s our job to help the community members we serve live full and healthy lives. We know first-hand the importance of removing the barriers that prevent those in our community from accessing care, and we believe that the proposed House Bill 1933 is one of those barriers. As written, HB 1933 will preclude transgender Pennsylvanians from accessing medically-appropriate and necessary health services.

We urge you to reject any and all efforts to deny healthcare coverage in CHIP and medical assistance programs to transgender Pennsylvanians based only on who they are.

We ask you to trust us — as clinicians, nurses, social workers, therapists, counselors — to know what care our patients need.

Nearly every major medical organization in the United States unequivocally supports medically-necessary healthcare for transgender individuals. The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Physician Assistants, the American College of Nurse Midwives, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Public Health Association, and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care are among the entities that have issued policy statements that support healthcare for transgender patients.

As healthcare professionals who provide care for transgender community members, we know that should HB 1933 become law it will lead to worsened health outcomes and exacerbated health disparities for an already vulnerable population.

In the spirit of public and community health, we urge you to reject this mean-spirited legislation and support a healthcare system which provides the coverage for all in our communities to live healthy lives.