California's taxpayer-funded state health insurance will now cover sex change procedures for illegal immigrants.
The insurance, Medi-Cal, became available to all illegal immigrants on January 1 — making it the first state in the nation to offer sex change services at no cost to non-citizens.
Medi-Cal is the state's version of the federal Medicaid program, which provides healthcare to low-income residents.
A state memo from May 2022, uncovered by the Daily Caller, explains that the program covers hormone therapy and surgical procedures "that bring primary and secondary gender characteristics into conformity with the individual’s identified gender, including ancillary services, such as hair removal, incident to those services."
"Gender affirming care refers to treatment provided to address incongruence between a person’s gender assigned at birth and their gender identity," the memo states. "Gender affirming care is a covered Medi-Cal benefit when medically necessary. Requests for gender affirming care should be from specialists experienced in providing culturally competent care to transgender and gender diverse individuals and should use nationally recognized guidelines."
The memo cited guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which advocates for child sex changes, as an example.
Approximately 700,000 illegal immigrants between the ages of 26 and 49 became eligible for Medi-Cal coverage at the start of 2024 in the latest expansion of the program. Previously, only minors were eligible, but it was expanded to 25 years old in 2019 — and later, everyone over 50, regardless of their citizenship.
“In California, we believe everyone deserves access to quality, affordable health care coverage – regardless of income or immigration status,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office told ABC News. “Through this expansion, we’re making sure families and communities across California are healthier, stronger, and able to get the care they need when they need it.”
California Senate Republican Caucus has criticized the increased spending on non-citizens.
"The Governor proposes to spend an additional $2.2 billion General Fund annually to expand Medi-Cal eligibility to roughly 764,000 undocumented individuals ages 26 through 49, starting in 2024," the caucus wrote in a statement last year. "This would be the final expansion of Medi-Cal to the undocumented population after recent expansions to roughly 203,000 undocumented children and young adults (age 25 and under) and 235,000 undocumented older adults (age 50 and above)."
The statement continued, "Medi- Cal is already strained by serving 14.6 million Californians—more than a third of the state’s population. Adding 764,000 more individuals to the system will certainly exacerbate current provider access problems."
