{"id":406301,"date":"2026-01-14T08:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T08:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/406301\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T08:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T08:44:18","slug":"uw-health-pauses-gender-affirming-care-for-minors-amid-federal-policy-changes-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/406301\/","title":{"rendered":"UW Health pauses gender-affirming care for minors amid federal policy changes | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MADISON, Wis. &#8212; UW Health will pause gender-affirming care for patients under 18 years of age, the health care provider confirmed in a statement to <a href=\"http:\/\/Channel3000.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Channel3000.com<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for UW Health said the move was made after &#8220;recent federal actions.&#8221; The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/press-room\/hhs-acts-bar-hospitals-performing-sex-rejecting-procedures-children.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">announced last month<\/a> that it will propose a rule to prevent hospitals that offer gender-affirming care to minors from participating in\u00a0Medicare and Medicaid programs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;UW Health is committed to providing high-quality, compassionate and patient-centered care to our patients and families, including LGBTQ+ patients,&#8221; UW Health said in a statement. &#8220;We recognize the uncertainty faced by\u00a0our impacted\u00a0patients and families\u00a0seeking\u00a0this\u00a0gender affirming care\u00a0and will continue to\u00a0support\u00a0their health and well-being.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The change further slims access to gender-affirming care in the Madison area. In 2023, News 3 Now Investigates found that SSM Health discontinued gender-affirming care at its Middleton location after receiving pressure from the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n<p>             <a href=\"https:\/\/www.channel3000.com\/news\/investigates\/ssm-health-discontinues-gender-affirming-surgeries-in-the-madison-area-amid-pressure-from-the-catholic\/article_84fcff98-27f1-11ee-ae74-c7c9c9401e3a.html\" class=\"tnt-asset-link\" aria-label=\"SSM Health discontinues gender-affirming surgeries in the Madison area amid pressure from the Catholic Church\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>            SSM Health discontinues gender-affirming surgeries in the Madison area amid pressure from the Catholic Church<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u200bCOPYRIGHT 2025 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADISON, Wis. &#8212; UW Health will pause gender-affirming care for patients under 18 years of age, the health&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[28151,97,252,253,17776,1342,31474,195651,797,195652],"class_list":["post-406301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-catholic-church","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-madison","tag-medicare","tag-spokesperson","tag-transgender-rights-in-the-united-states","tag-u-s-department-of-health-and-human-services","tag-uw-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}