By Sarah Holliday
The Washington Stand
As of January 1, California is now extending free taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrants. Under the program, free gender transition surgeries and hormone therapy are included in what’s offered.
Medi-Cal is the Medicaid health care program of California. Initially, it served the purpose of providing care for “low-income individuals, families with children, seniors, persons with disabilities, people in foster care, pregnant women, and low-income people with diseases such as tuberculosis, cancer, or HIV/AIDS,” The Post Millennial reported. Children became eligible for California’s free health care in 2015, and in 2019, it was expanded to those between 19 and 25. Most recently, anyone under the age of 50 is qualified.
Under Medi-Cal’s online “Transgender and Gender Diverse Services” section, it explains that the free services are for “recipients who receive services that do not match the gender assigned at birth.” The manual also states that “gender-affirming care is” offered “when medically necessary,” adding that requests should come from experienced “specialists.” According to California Code of Regulations, Title 22, Section 51303, “necessary” services “are reasonable and necessary to protect life, to prevent significant illness or significant disability, or to alleviate severe pain through the diagnosis and treatment of disease, illness or injury.”
While many find this development staggering, California has already enacted similar policies in the past. In 2017, California became the first state to fully fund “sex-reassignment” surgeries for inmates — which are also taxpayer-funded. And in these cases, many of the transgender-identifying prisoners are switched from male prisons to female prisons after their operations.
David Closson, director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, commented to The Washington Stand, “The problem with the recently enacted law in California is that it turns reality upside down in the name of ‘health care.’” Regardless of who receives these services, he emphasized, “California is now using taxpayers to fund procedures that could be more properly described as abuse.” Many medical and psychological experts argue against “gender affirming care” as studies reveal it has long-lasting damage both physically and mentally.
Closson quoted Isiah 5:20 which states, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” He insisted that Isaiah, when it comes to gender transition surgeries, hormone therapy, purity blockers, etc., could never “have imagined the dystopia of the California health care system” because it evidently mistakes evil for good.
He concluded, “Already, California funds abortion on demand. So, in one sense, it’s not a surprise to see them go down this road. And California’s journey to bankruptcy seems to be moving full speed ahead as ideology, rather than health care, drives the Left that is in control of” the state.
In a statement to TWS, Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at FRC, concurred with Closson’s conclusion. “Governor Newsom cleaned up San Francisco for a communist leader’s visit, with many people asking why the American citizens living in San Francisco didn’t deserve clean streets and public safety. Now he’s giving health care paid for by Californians to noncitizens. Californians and all Americans deserve better leadership than this.”
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