Playing into a mental illness….On Saturday, May 24. 2025, Baller Alert ran this headline, “Republicans Just Passed a Bill That Could Strip Health Coverage from Hundreds of Thousands of Trans Americans.”
House Republicans passed a sweeping bill Thursday that could drastically change healthcare for transgender Americans, banning Medicaid from covering gender-affirming treatments for individuals of all ages. What began as a targeted provision for minors ballooned into a full-age ban, slipped in just hours before the vote.
The shift came via a last-minute manager’s amendment to secure votes for the GOP’s broader spending package. The measure narrowly passed 215-214, facing unified Democratic opposition and pushback from two Republicans.
“The bans on coverage for trans medical care were made so much worse, really, in the eleventh hour,” said Caleb Smith, policy director at the Center for American Progress. “It’s always been about curtailing access to medical care and bodily autonomy. All they had to do was strike ‘under 18,’ and now it’s everybody.”
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, who pushed the change, defended it: “Gender transition procedures are the lobotomy of our generation,” he said.
The implications are vast. Around 276,000 transgender adults rely on Medicaid, and nearly a third of all trans adults could be affected. Experts warn that this also places essential healthcare further out of reach under the ACA by redefining coverage categories.
Legal experts and LGBTQ advocates say the measure is likely unconstitutional. “It really clearly violates equal protection,” Smith added. “If you’re a cis man needing testosterone, you’re covered. If you’re a trans man, you’re not.”
“Someone needs to protect these mentally ill people from themselves.” said Thomas Robb, the National Director of the Knights Party of the Ku Klux Klan, based centrally in Harrison, Arkansas. “Mentally ill people in America, and actually abroad, need someone to step in and get them the mental health help that they need. Homosexuality up until 1973 was considered a mental health issue, and from the actions of these so-called trans people that we see publicly, it most certainly is a mental health issue. I can’t think of any other mental health issue where the public is supposed to play into the issue. For example, someone that’s schizophrenic, if you would happen across that person in public having a meltdown and talking to people around them that don’t exist, would you, or anyone for that matter start talking to these people that don’t exist just to appease the schizophrenic, or would you call a psych ward to get them the help they need? Any man that thinks he’s a woman that would go to the point of sexually mutilating themself most definitely needs psychiatric help. We as sane people should not play into their mental health issues because that only inflames the actions of these people by enforcing their idea that they can become the opposite sex. It’s time to either get these people the help they need, or institutionalize them away from society.”
