LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) – State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha is challenging the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services over rules the department put in place for LB574.
Gov. Jim Pillen approved the rule in March. LB574, a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors, was passed in May 2023 along with the abortion law.
In a letter to state Sen. Rey Aguilar, chairman of the state Legislature’s Executive Committee, Cavanaugh said the state law violates Nebraskans’ right to receive health care based on their gender identity, a form of discrimination that is also prohibited by federal civil rights law.
“These regulations impose significant barriers to access to gender-affirming health care, especially for minors under the age of 19,” Cavanaugh said in a statement accompanying the letter. “The undue burdens imposed on patients and health care providers go far beyond the statutory language and intent of LB 574 and impact the well-being of transgender people and their families.”
She argues that these rules, from prerequisites for obtaining a prescription to rules on how the prescription must be administered, create “excessive and unjustified burdens.”
Cavanaugh said “arbitrary” waiting periods required for treatment, such as 40 hours of “clinically neutral” therapy before being prescribed puberty-suppressing medication, and the requirement to live as one’s preferred gender for six months before receiving cross-sex hormones, “ignore the urgency and individualization of treating gender dysphoria. Delays in accessing this “necessary care” can also exacerbate transgender youth’s mental health issues and distress, she said.
She also argues that mandating that injectable prescriptions be administered in a doctor’s office rather than at home creates barriers that are sometimes insurmountable.
“This medication cannot be administered if the physician does not have a pharmacy in their office (within the patient’s medical network), and physicians will not inject medications that patients bring in from outside,” her letter said.
In his request for reconsideration, Kavanaugh argues that the rule imposes requirements on transgender youth to obtain medications that other youth can access without any barriers.
“These regulatory burdens far outweigh any potential public benefit and create unnecessary barriers to access to basic health care,” she said.
Read Senator Kavanaugh’s challenge letter
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