Latest news with #HouseRulesCommittee
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Inside the late-night drama that led to Trump's tax bill passing by 1 vote
It was nearly 10 p.m. on a Sunday night when House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., surprised reporters in the hallway of the Cannon House Office Building. The top House Republican was making a low-key — but high-stakes — visit to the House Budget Committee before the panel's second meeting on President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill." The first meeting on May 16 had blown up without resolution when four fiscal hawks balked at the legislation and voted against advancing it to the full House. "The real debate was, is when [we] voted not to approve the budget. And the reason I did that, along with the others, was we needed to make the provisions better," Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital. "It was our opportunity to make a bill that overall was good, better. And that was the impetus to stop the budget, and then get some concessions. And then when it reached Rules Committee, there really wasn't that much dissension." Meet The Trump-picked Lawmakers Giving Speaker Johnson A Full House Gop Conference The committee meeting continued with little fanfare, save for Democratic objections to the bill, before one more visit from Johnson, when he signaled the deal was sealed. Read On The Fox News App "I think what is about to happen here is that every member, every Republican member, will give a vote that allows us to proceed forward, and we count that as a big win tonight," Johnson said. He was right, with the legislation advancing exactly along party lines. Fox News Digital was told that conservatives were anticipating what is called a manager's amendment, a vehicle with wide flexibility to change legislation, before the House Rules Committee's vote to advance the bill to the full chamber. The House Rules Committee acts as the final gatekeeper to most bills before a House-wide vote. Trump himself made a rare visit to Capitol Hill the morning of May 20 to urge Republicans to vote for the bill. Mccaul Touts Money In Trump Tax Bill To Pay Texas Back For Fighting Biden Border Policies House leaders again signaled confidence late on May 21, informing Republicans that they would likely vote soon after the House Rules Committee's meeting was over. However, that meeting alone had already dragged on for hours, from just after 1 a.m. on May 21 to finally voting on Trump's tax bill just after 2:30 a.m. on May 22. Lawmakers and reporters alike struggled to stay awake as Democratic lawmakers forced votes on over 500 amendments, largely symbolic, in a bid to drag out the process. Meanwhile, at some point overnight, talks with GOP holdouts went south. The House Freedom Caucus held an impromptu press conference directly after Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., met with Johnson. "The leadership's going to have to figure out where to go from here," Harris said. "I think there is a pathway forward that we can see…I'm not sure this can be done this week. I'm pretty confident it could be done in 10 days. But that's up to leadership to decide." Harris also said the Freedom Caucus had struck a "deal" with the White House, something a White House official denied. "The White House presented HFC with policy options that the administration can live with, provided they can get the votes," the official said. However, the manager's amendment, which finally came out just after 11 p.m. on May 21, eased the concerns of at least several of the fiscal hawks. It bolstered funding to states that did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), included additional tax relief for gun owners, and quickened the implementation of Medicaid work requirements, among other measures. Meanwhile, a small group of those House Freedom Caucus members had also been meeting with a small group of conservative senators who assured them they would seek deep spending cuts in the bill when it landed in the upper chamber, Norman said. Mike Johnson, Donald Trump Get 'Big, 'Beautiful' Win As Budget Passes House "It was our hope that the Senate would come back and even make the cuts deeper, so that the deficit could be cut," Norman said. The moves were not enough to ease everyone's concerns, however. Roughly three hours after the amendment's release, Freedom Caucus Policy Chair Chip Roy, R-Texas, was the only Republican member of the House Rules Committee to miss the key vote. Fox News Digital inquired via text message why Roy missed the vote and was told he was "actually reading the bill…" Nevertheless, it passed by an 8 to 4 vote — prompting House leaders to warn their members to return for what would be an all-night series of voting and debates. Democratic leaders, recognizing they would be sidelined completely if Republicans had enough support on their side, again moved to delay the proceedings. A whip notice sent to House Democrats, obtained by Fox News Digital, warned left-wing lawmakers that "House Republicans are planning to finish debate and vote on final passage of H.R. 1 late tonight." The notice advised that House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., would force a vote on adjourning the House and that "additional procedural votes are expected." In a bid to keep Republicans close to the House floor for what was an hourslong night, the speaker set up a side room with snacks and coffee for lawmakers to wait out proceedings. In the House Appropriations Committee room just down the hall, more Republicans were huddled over cigars and other refreshments. The smell of tobacco smoke wafted out as increasingly haggard lawmakers shuffled between the two rooms. Fox News Digital even heard from several lawmakers inquiring when the final vote was expected to be — and wondering whether they had time for a nap themselves. Meanwhile, Fox News Digital spotted Harris and Roy walking the opposite way from the hullabaloo of the House floor, toward the much quieter Longworth House Office Building. Both said they were leaving for more conversations with White House staff before the final vote. Scoop: House Gop Memo Highlights Republican Wins In Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' "The manager's amendment gets us a little closer, but we're still in discussions with the executive branch to see whether we can achieve the objectives that we seek, which is support the president's goals on waste fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid and, you know, making sure that we've got all we can out of the Inflation Reduction Act," Harris said. Roy said he hoped Republicans would go further against states that drastically expanded their Medicaid populations under the ACA. He also signaled that leaders suggested at the time some further Medicaid reform could come from the White House. "The speaker alluded to this afternoon…that there are things in the executive space, executive actions, that we think could take care of some of the concerns that we were having about — again, it's not what we want, but it does ameliorate some of our concerns on the Medicaid expansion front," Roy said. Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and the speaker's office for comment. When it came time for the final vote, it appeared enough was done to get Roy on board. Harris, however, voted "present." Neither made themselves available for an interview for this story. The final vote saw just two Republican defections — Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., long a critic of Johnson, and Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio. "While I love many things in the bill, promising someone else will cut spending in the future does not cut spending. Deficits do matter and this bill grows them now. The only Congress we can control is the one we're in. Consequently, I cannot support this big deficit plan. NO," Davidson posted on X just before the vote began. Two other Republicans, Reps. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., and Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., both fell asleep before the final vote — but both said they would have voted to pass the bill. In the end, it advanced by a 215-214 vote — with Republicans erupting in cheers when they realized the victory was locked. "The media, the Democrats have consistently dismissed any possibility that House Republicans could get this done. They did not believe that we could succeed in our mission to enact President Trump's America First agenda. But this is a big one. And once again, they've been proven wrong," Johnson said during a press conference after the vote. Now, the bill is expected to be considered by the Senate next week — when senators are already signaling they are gearing up to make changes. "I encourage our Senate colleagues to think of this as a one-team effort as we have, and to modify this as little as possible, because it will make it easier for us to get it over the line ultimately, and finish and get it to the president's desk by July fourth," Johnson article source: Inside the late-night drama that led to Trump's tax bill passing by 1 vote
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
House passes bill to rename Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America
WASHINGTON - The Republican-controlled House on Thursday passed a bill that would codify President Donald Trump's executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The bill, introduced by conservative firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., requires that 'any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record' to the Gulf of Mexico shall be changed to the Gulf of America, according to its text. It notes that the head of each federal agency has 180 days to update their documents and maps, and that the Secretary of Interior will oversee the renaming. Greene's bill passed the House along mostly party lines by a 211-206 vote, with one Republican, Rep. Don Bacon, and all Democrats opposing it. In January, Trump signed an executive order directing the name change, noting that the body of water 'has long been an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America.' The gulf is surrounded by Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, as well as some parts of Mexico and Cuba. It plays a crucial role in the U.S. economy, harboring numerous ports for business, and is a popular fishing destination. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo threw cold water at Trump's call to rename the gulf in January, sarcastically proposing that the U.S. be renamed "Mexican America." After Google had renamed the gulf in its maps following Trump's executive order, Sheinbaum Pardo threatened legal action against the tech giant in February. 'It's time to codify President Trump's executive order into law,' Greene wrote in a post on X last week. 'It's OUR gulf, let's make the name permanent!' House Rules Committee Chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said during a hearing on Monday that Greene's bill 'recognizes the strategic influence America has over this geography, not to mention the existing economic, cultural, and commercial might that we passively exert on the gulf.' 'The necessary renaming made by the president did not end the world as some would like us to believe nor did it cause a single bit of harm to the American people,' she said. But Democrats have railed against Greene's bill. "Insanity," said Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo. "I can't believe this is where we are spending our time." Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., said, "Prices are going up. People's 401K's are being decimated, and they want to rename the Gulf of Mexico, which isn't even going to work. The rest of the world is going to call it the Gulf of Mexico." The bill will likely not pass in the Senate. Seven Democrats will need to join Republicans to clear a 60-vote threshold and advance it to a final vote. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House passes bill to rename Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
House passes tax bill that bans Medicaid from covering transition-related care
The tax bill passed by the House on Thursday would bar Medicaid coverage of all transgender care and prohibit plans offered under the Affordable Care Act's exchanges from covering such care as an essential health benefit, potentially jeopardizing access to care for hundreds of thousands of trans adults and an unknown number of minors. The bill initially prohibited Medicaid from covering 'gender transition procedures' for minors, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery. However, House Republican leadership introduced an amendment to the bill late Wednesday that struck the word 'minors' and the words 'under 18 years of age' from that section, The Independent first reported. The amendment passed the GOP-led House Rules Committee on Wednesday night before the full House passed it Thursday morning. Another portion of the bill prohibits transition-related medical care as an essential health benefit under health care plans offered through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace. Essential health benefits packages vary by state but are required by federal law to cover 10 categories of benefits. Nearly half of states have prohibited health insurance providers from explicitly refusing to cover transition-related care. The tax bill's prohibitions could have a significant effect on hundreds of thousands of trans adults in the U.S. A report published this month by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that about 180,000 trans adults use Medicaid as their primary insurance. Another study, published in 2023, found that nearly 1 in 4 (24.6%) trans adults are on Medicaid, or about 312,000, based on one estimate that there are 1.3 million trans adults in the U.S. It's unclear how many trans adults are enrolled in insurance through the health care marketplace. The Department of Health and Human Services reported that nearly 24 million people had enrolled in marketplace coverage by January. There are an additional 300,000 youth ages 13-17 who identify as transgender, and it's unclear how many of them are on Medicaid or marketplace insurance plans. President Donald Trump has made curtailing access to care for trans people a priority of his administration. In the first few weeks of his presidency, he has signed several executive orders targeting trans people, including proclaiming that the government will recognize only two unchangeable sexes; prohibiting trans women and girls from playing on female sports teams; barring transgender people from serving openly in the military; and restricting access to gender-affirming care nationwide for trans people younger than 19. Trump and Republicans oppose access to transition-related care for minors, arguing that they are too young to make informed decisions about receiving such treatments and that the long-term effects of some of the treatments have not been well studied. LGBTQ advocates and medical professionals who treat trans people say those arguments aren't accurate and spread misinformation, and most major medical associations such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association, support access to such care. Speaker Mike Johnson, who helped negotiate the amendment among Republicans, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House also didn't immediately respond to a request for comment regarding whether it supports the amendment. LGBTQ advocates began forcefully speaking out against the tax bill Thursday. Jennifer Pizer, chief legal officer at Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, said it's unclear how the administration plans to argue against transition care for adults, who can make their own medical decisions and for whom transition care is well studied and supported. 'It makes the animus, the hostility against this group of people, unmistakable,' Pizer said. 'Under any standard of constitutional review, laws based on animus or hostility to a group are not legitimate.' If the bill becomes law as is, Pizer said it would likely face a legal challenge for potentially violating the Constitution's equal protection clause, which requires that laws treat people equally. She also noted that, after a suit by Lambda Legal and other LGBTQ advocacy groups, a federal judge blocked Trump's executive order that would have cut off all federal funding to medical schools and hospitals that provide transition care to minors. The bill would also directly conflict with laws in half of states that prohibit insurers from excluding coverage for gender-affirming care. In those cases, Pizer said the states could use their own funding to continue covering the care under state Medicaid plans. However, 'that's not a happy answer for people who live in other parts of the country, where states themselves are hostile to transgender people and this medical care.' 'This aggressive effort to reimpose exclusions, it's about hostility to a group and it's a political movement,' she said. 'It's not coming from medical experts or providers who engage with actual patients. This is about politics and not about anything that's justified in terms of our medical programs.' This article was originally published on
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Gun Silencers, Tanning Beds And Other Weird Stuff Tucked Into The GOP's Tax Bill
WASHINGTON – When House Republicans passed President Donald Trump's sweeping domestic policy package in the wee hours of Thursday, they didn't just approve giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts to rich people while kicking down millions of poor people. They made it easier to get gun silencers. And quietly removed a weird provision about tanning beds. And expanded a ban on gender-affirming care. And, in a show of fealty to the president, they came up with a new name for tax-saving accounts that the government would seed with $1,000 for babies born in the next few years: 'Trump Accounts.' There was already a lot going on in the GOP's 1,100-page bill, which is actually called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But things got confusing late Wednesday when Republicans unveiled a 42-page amendment with all kinds of eleventh-hour changes. They released their new language as the House Rules Committee was entering its 20th hour of a hearing on the bill, and Democrats barely had time to make sense of all the changes. Decisions in Washington don't just stay in Washington — they shape real lives. HuffPost is committed to reporting on how policies affect people across the country. Support journalism that connects the dots. They're a lot clearer now. Here are some of the weird and last-minute things Republicans slipped into their bill, which is now headed to the Senate and already hitting a wall over there. In order to win over the vote of Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, GOP leaders slipped language into the bill making it easier for people to buy gun silencers. Specifically, the bill eliminates a $200 firearm registration fee for silencers and removes a requirement that people have to register their silencers at all. During the late-night rules committee hearing, Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) howled about this 'magical amendment' suddenly being part of the bill. She noted the federal tax on gun silencers has been in place since 1934. 'It's a brazen attempt to make it easier to commit violent crimes,' said Scanlon as she unsuccessfully tried to strip it from the bill. 'I think this is sneaky. I think it's a radical policy change with no explanation for why this longstanding federal policy should be overturned in the middle of the night.' Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the rules panel, ripped Republicans for slipping the unrelated gun provision into their tax bill. 'Quite frankly, what is in this reconciliation bill, you know, does more to support assassins than it does American families,' McGovern said. When a Republican on the committee laughed him off, the Massachusetts Democrat fired back, 'You know what? Talk to law enforcement. Talk to people who have been victims of gun violence. I know you think it's funny, but I don't.' For some reason, Republicans initially included language in the bill to repeal a federal excise tax on indoor tanning services. But it appears they were shamed into taking it out at the last minute. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) flagged the provision in Wednesday's Rules Committee hearing and asked Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who was testifying before the committee, to read the line item out loud. He refused. 'So that the American public knows what this bill does… Would you please read page 901, line 20?' Leger Fernández asked Smith. 'I think it'd be better if you read it,' Smith replied. 'Oh, he doesn't want to read it!' Leger Fernández said with a laugh. 'This is in their bill. They don't want to read a line from their own bill.' Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) eventually read the provision aloud: 'It says Section 11106: Repeal of excise tax on indoor tanning services.' Amid more laughs, Leger Fernández contrasted the provision, which makes it easier to own a tanning bed, with the bill's drastic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance. She took a shot at Trump's tanning habits and wondered aloud if he put that language into the bill. 'There are certain elected officials who appear to have a certain orange hue about them,' she said. 'Maybe they want to make sure tanning beds get a little bit of special credit.' The tanning bed provision was mysteriously gone in the final bill. An eagle-eyed reporter first flagged a slight change in wording in the final bill that significantly expanded a ban on using Medicaid or CHIP funding for gender-affirming care. The GOP bill initially imposed this prohibition on minors, but its final language applies the ban to anyone relying on these programs. 'The House Republican budget bill passed this morning shows that anti-trans policies remain a top priority for both the party and the Trump administration,' said Imara Jones, CEO of Trans Lash Media, an independent news organization that tells the stories of transgender people. 'The fact that they are willing to ban federally funded health care for trans people of all ages — including adults on Medicaid and children enrolled in CHIP — shows that the goal all along has been to push trans people from public life,' Jones said in a statement. The GOP bill creates a new incentive for women to make more babies by paying them $1,000 for every American baby born over the next four years. For babies born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Jan. 1, 2029, the federal government would deposit $1,000 into an account called a 'Trump account.' That money would then be invested on their behalf in financial markets, and when the baby grows up, he or she can withdraw from their 'Trump Account' for things like going to college or buying a house. The kid's parents can also contribute to the account. The GOP decided this money would be deposited into something called a 'money account for growth and advancement' account, or 'MAGA account.' But that didn't seem to sufficiently suck up to Trump, so at the eleventh hour, they renamed these accounts after him. In a rare win for people who care about the environment, Republicans removed language from the final bill that would have allowed for the sale of public lands in Nevada and Utah. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), who served as Trump's interior secretary in his first term, had threatened to vote against the bill unless this language was stripped. Environmental groups praised Zinke for his efforts, even if the overall bill is terrible. 'The American people have spoken loud and clear - our public lands should not be for sale,' Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, said in a statement. 'Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle were right to throw this proposal in the trash can, but a bad bill is still a bad bill,' he said. 'As written, Donald Trump's reconciliation package is a giveaway to corporate polluters that would make it easier for billionaires to drill, mine, and log the public lands that belong to all Americans, from the Arctic Refuge to the desert landscapes of the southwest.' The final bill could result in the closure of as many as 200 Planned Parenthood health centers, or one-third of all these health centers nationwide. These closures would come as a result of the bill's new ban on gender-affirming care for all Medicaid patients and its provisions aimed at eliminating health plans that include abortion coverage from the Affordable Care Act marketplace. The consequences of these health centers closing would be 'catastrophic,' said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood. 'If Congress passes its reconciliation bill as written, an estimated 200 Planned Parenthood health centers could close, leaving entire communities and regions without access to essential health care,' Johnson said in a statement. 'Cancers will go undetected, birth control will be harder to get, and the public health infrastructure – already pushed to the brink – will break down.' 'Instead of actually helping their constituents, politicians want to stop them from getting care at Planned Parenthood health centers and impose their beliefs on everyone else,' she said. Someone initially put language in the bill that attempted to let Trump circumvent the nation's courts and, essentially, serve as a king: 'No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued….' Translated, this provision would strip all federal courts, including the Supreme Court, of the ability to hold Trump or members of his administration in contempt of court. Not only would this violate the Constitution, but its timing is eerie, as Trump has been flouting an order by the Supreme Court to 'facilitate' the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a legal U.S. resident who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. The administration has also been ignoring orders from lower courts to stop deporting migrants without giving them due process. It's not clear which Republican put this language into the bill in the first place, but it was curiously stripped out of the final bill. At the last minute, Republicans revised their bill to expedite the timeline for imposing work requirements on Medicaid recipients. After initially including language triggering these requirements at the start of 2029, the final bill moved up the date to the end of 2026. As a result of the GOP's stricter work requirement for federal health and food programs, an estimated 14 million people may lose their health coverage, and 3 million households may go without food assistance. Republicans originally used their bill to change the formula for calculating federal employees' earned benefits by basing it on a worker's five top years of earnings, versus three years under current law. But by the end, they kept the formula where it was. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) was among those who had pushed back on this change, saying it wasn't fair to do this to current federal workers, who have already been enduring chaos, stress and fear of losing their jobs for months thanks to the sloppy work of Elon Musk and his surrogates at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. 'Making changes to pensions and retirement benefits in the middle of someone's employment is wrong,' Turner said during a committee hearing on the bill last month. 'Changing the rules, especially when someone has already been vested in their benefits, is wrong,' he said. 'Employee benefits are not a gift, they're earned.' If you're someone who received a Purple Heart during your military service and you're looking for more tax credits after your Social Security disability benefits were cut because you got a job, this bill has you covered. The GOP bill would increase the amount of your Earned Income Tax Credit by the sum of your Social Security disability insurance benefits terminated as a result of you getting a job.
NBC News
22-05-2025
- Health
- NBC News
House passes tax bill that bans Medicaid from covering transition-related care
The tax bill passed by the House on Thursday would bar Medicaid coverage of all transgender care and prohibit plans offered under the Affordable Care Act's exchanges from covering such care as an essential health benefit, potentially jeopardizing access to care for hundreds of thousands of trans adults and an unknown number of minors. The bill initially prohibited Medicaid from covering 'gender transition procedures' for minors, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery. However, House Republican leadership introduced an amendment to the bill late Wednesday that struck the word 'minors' and the words 'under 18 years of age' from that section, The Independent first reported. The amendment passed the GOP-led House Rules Committee on Wednesday night before the full House passed it Thursday morning. Another portion of the bill prohibits transition-related medical care as an essential health benefit under health care plans offered through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace. Essential health benefits packages vary by state but are required by federal law to cover 10 categories of benefits. Nearly half of states have prohibited health insurance providers from explicitly refusing to cover transition-related care. The tax bill's prohibitions could have a significant effect on hundreds of thousands of trans adults in the U.S. A report published this month by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that about 180,000 trans adults use Medicaid as their primary insurance. Another study, published in 2023, found that nearly 1 in 4 (24.6%) trans adults are on Medicaid, or about 312,000, based on one estimate that there are 1.3 million trans adults in the U.S. It's unclear how many trans adults are enrolled in insurance through the health care marketplace. The Department of Health and Human Services reported that nearly 24 million people had enrolled in marketplace coverage by January. There are an additional 300,000 youth ages 13-17 who identify as transgender, and it's unclear how many of them are on Medicaid or marketplace insurance plans. President Donald Trump has made curtailing access to care for trans people a priority of his administration. In the first few weeks of his presidency, he has signed several executive orders targeting trans people, including proclaiming that the government will recognize only two unchangeable sexes; prohibiting trans women and girls from playing on female sports teams; barring transgender people from serving openly in the military; and restricting access to gender-affirming care nationwide for trans people younger than 19. Trump and Republicans oppose access to transition-related care for minors, arguing that they are too young to make informed decisions about receiving such treatments and that the long-term effects of some of the treatments have not been well studied. LGBTQ advocates and medical professionals who treat trans people say those arguments aren't accurate and spread misinformation, and most major medical associations such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association, support access to such care. Speaker Mike Johnson, who helped negotiate the amendment among Republicans, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House also didn't immediately respond to a request for comment regarding whether it supports the amendment. LGBTQ advocates began forcefully speaking out against the tax bill Thursday. Jennifer Pizer, chief legal officer at Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, said it's unclear how the administration plans to argue against transition care for adults, who can make their own medical decisions and for whom transition care is well studied and supported. 'It makes the animus, the hostility against this group of people, unmistakable,' Pizer said. 'Under any standard of constitutional review, laws based on animus or hostility to a group are not legitimate.' If the bill becomes law as is, Pizer said it would likely face a legal challenge for potentially violating the Constitution's equal protection clause, which requires that laws treat people equally. She also noted that, after a suit by Lambda Legal and other LGBTQ advocacy groups, a federal judge blocked Trump's executive order that would have cut off all federal funding to medical schools and hospitals that provide transition care to minors. The bill would also directly conflict with laws in half of states that prohibit insurers from excluding coverage for gender-affirming care. In those cases, Pizer said the states could use their own funding to continue covering the care under state Medicaid plans. However, 'that's not a happy answer for people who live in other parts of the country, where states themselves are hostile to transgender people and this medical care.' 'This aggressive effort to reimpose exclusions, it's about hostility to a group and it's a political movement,' she said. 'It's not coming from medical experts or providers who engage with actual patients. This is about politics and not about anything that's justified in terms of our medical programs.'
