In a surprise move, Georgia’s Department of Community Health has agreed to include coverage for gender-affirming surgeries in the state’s Medicaid program as part of a settlement with two transgender women and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The ACLU and its Georgia affiliate sued the department last year over its exclusion of coverage for gender-affirming surgery, alleging that the rule violated “the constitutional rights” of transgender Medicaid beneficiaries. The lawsuit, also filed by the law firm King & Spalding on behalf of two female plaintiffs, claimed that Georgia Medicaid discriminated against them because they are transgender.
The suit also claimed the state “incorrectly” characterized the health care needs of both women as “cosmetic” and “experimental.”
The state agency settled rather than fight and several Republican state legislators contacted by James Magazine Online are fuming that Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr didn’t want to take on the plaintiffs in court.
One conservative group, Georgia Frontline, issued a media release saying the settlement “is pure evil… an abuse of our tax dollars… and an abuse of those psychologically disturbed public employees who will have their mental illness treated with life-altering surgery.” The settlement, it says, “is not the will of our elected officials or an act of the General Assembly. It stems from an insanely bad interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Bostock decision.”
Georgia Frontline says it plans to “partner with and encourage our attorney general and other allied attorneys in cases where we can pierce the evil of the Bostock decision.”
