Florida fines Medicaid providers for using tax dollars to cover gender-affirming care for minors

Five Medicaid health insurers were fined after it was revealed they violated a Florida rule that forbids taxpayer dollars going to gender-affirming care for minors. 

According to an exclusive report from The Daily Wire, health officials from Florida sent letters to the five insurance providers on Thursday, informing them that they were being fined. 

“These plans recklessly continued to cover these services with permanent, harmful effects, after the rule was adopted,” Jason Weida, Secretary of the Agency for Healthcare Administration, told The Daily Wire news podcast Morning Wire in an interview. “[They] will not stand in the way of our fight to protect the innocence of Florida’s kids.”

Some of the procedures that were paid for by taxpayer dollars include a double mastectomy on a 16-year-old girl and puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones being given to minors. 

Even though a Florida federal judge blocked a rule that banned gender affirming care for minors, the Agency for Health Care Administration has a rule that requires the state's Medicaid to deny coverage for those specific treatments. 

Weida told The Daily Wire that he's grateful for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis bringing awareness to transgender surgeries and puberty blockers for minors. 

“We take this issue really seriously,” he told the outlet. “We think that the protection of children is one of the most core functions of government here in Florida, and we’re going to do everything we can to protect children from these surgeries, which are really mutilating children across the country.”