SANTA FE, N.M. — State Sen. Gabriel Ramos, R-Silver City, is calling on the Lujan Grisham administration to reverse course after the New Mexico Health Care Authority said it will use state taxpayer dollars to fund gender-transition treatments for minors once federal Medicaid and CHIP funding for the services ends this fall.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a final rule barring the use of federal Medicaid and CHIP funds for gender-affirming care for patients under 19, effective Oct. 13, according to reporting by the Santa Fe New Mexican. Patients already on hormone-replacement therapy will retain federal coverage for an additional six months.
New Mexico’s Medicaid program, Turquoise Care, currently covers medications — including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones — but not surgical procedures, for transgender and gender-nonconforming people under 18. Health Care Authority spokesperson Timothy Fowler told the New Mexican the agency “is planning to continue covering these services using state funds,” shifting the cost from the federal government to New Mexico taxpayers.
Ramos said the state should not force taxpayers to underwrite the treatments.
“As a Catholic and a father, I believe every child is made in the image of God and deserves to be protected, not experimented on,” Ramos said in a statement. “It is unconscionable that this governor wants to force New Mexicans to pay for irreversible interventions on kids who are years away from being old enough to fully understand the consequences.”
Ramos argued the science behind the treatments remains unsettled and that taxpayers who object on moral or religious grounds shouldn’t be required to fund them, regardless of their views on individual families’ decisions.
“This isn’t about judging any family going through a hard situation,” he said. “It’s about whether state government should be forcing the rest of us to fund something so many New Mexicans believe, on moral and religious grounds, is simply wrong to do to a child.”
Advocates for transgender youth have raised the opposite concern — that losing federal coverage could put the treatments out of reach for lower-income families. Adrien Lawyer, executive director of the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico, told the New Mexican that puberty blockers can cost $4,000 to $25,000 a year without insurance.
Ramos said he plans to raise the issue with legislative colleagues ahead of the next session and will keep pressing the Health Care Authority to change course and disclose the cost of the decision to taxpayers.
