\nPennsylvania and New Jersey have joined the multi-state lawsuit against the federal government over proposed rules that would restrict gender-affirming care to young people.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe lawsuit filed Tuesday by 19 states and the District of Columbia is a response to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ plan<\/a>\u00a0announced Thursday that would\u00a0cut federal funding<\/a> \u2013 including Medicare and Medicaid \u2013 to hospitals that provide puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries to children and adolescents.\n<\/p>\n MORE:\u00a0Philadelphia sues pharmacy benefit managers, drug makers for inflating insulin prices<\/a><\/p>\n \n\u201cAt the core of this so-called declaration are real people: young people who need care, parents trying to support their children, and doctors who are simply following the best medical evidence available,\u201d New York Attorney General Letitia James, who spearheaded the lawsuit, said a press release<\/a>. \u201cSecretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors\u2019 offices.”\n<\/p>\n Last week’s proposed changes are the latest step in efforts by the federal government to curtail gender-affirming care to youth and follow an executive order<\/a> in January for HHS “to take all appropriate actions to end” such treatment.\n<\/p>\n \nThe lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oregon<\/a>, list the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and its inspector general as defendants. It argues that the HHS declaration “exceeds” Kennedy’s authority, that HHS “is unlawfully interfering” in patient-provider relationships and that HHS cannot “circumvent” basic legal requirements for policy changes. It calls for the court to block the proposed new rules.\n<\/p>\n \nHHS declined a request from the\u00a0Associated Press<\/a>\u00a0to comment on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n \nEarlier this year, Penn Medicine<\/a> stopped offering gender-affirming care to people yonget than 19. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia<\/a> \u2013 which has one of the leading programs in the country offering medical support for gender-nonconforming and transgender youth \u2013 has been embroiled in a court battle<\/a> with the Trump administration over medical records of patients who receive its services.\n<\/p>\n \nCHOP, Jefferson Health and Main Line Health did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday’s HHS declaration. Temple Health and Cooper University Health Care declined to comment.\n<\/p>\n \nThe American Academy of Pediatrics<\/a> and other major medical organizations support access to gender-affirming care for minors, although more than half of states<\/a> have laws or policies that limit access to these services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania and New Jersey have joined the multi-state lawsuit against the federal government over proposed rules that would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[36852,36313,5718,36853,14671,915,36854,28,30,29,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-69921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-childrens-health","9":"tag-chop","10":"tag-federal-government","11":"tag-gender","12":"tag-lawsuits","13":"tag-new-jersey","14":"tag-penn-medicine","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","17":"tag-pennsylvania-news","18":"tag-philadelphia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}