The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a request by two teens to order Arizona’s Medicaid program, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, to pay for surgery for a transgender teen who claimed the state’s failure to do so amounted to sex discrimination.
The Court’s ruling upheld a lower court that found the teen’s desire for chest reconstruction surgery was not “medically necessary.”
The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) does pay for gender dysphoria counseling and hormone therapy so the Court found that the system clearly does not engage in sex discrimination.
According to Cronkite News, the “Doe case began when AHCCCS refused to cover a male chest reconstructive surgery for Doe and another teen, identified as D.H., that sued in August 2020, claiming the “exclusion discriminated against them under the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits denial of care based on sex, and under a 2020 Supreme Court case, known as Bostock, that extended laws against sex discrimination in employment to include gay and transgender workers.”