National Center for Transgender Equality Issues Statement on Senate Trumpcare

WASHINGTON, June 22 -- The National Center for Transgender Equality issued the following statement by Executive Director Mara Keisling:

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The Senate today released their secret draft bill to repeal large portions of the Affordable Care Act. The bill is currently scheduled for a vote Wednesday, June 28. The planned cuts to Medicaid, which are even deeper and more devastating than those proposed in the House bill passed last month, would leave large numbers of transgender people without access to basic healthcare. The cuts to income-based subsidies would skyrocket transgender Americans' out-of-pocket costs. And allowing states to opt out of essential health benefits would leave transgender Americans around the country without even the most basic protections.

"Today's release of the Senate healthcare bill makes perfectly clear why they kept it secret for so long: it is a shameful plan to strip millions of Americans of the care they need to stay alive and healthy. The Senators who drafted this unconscionable bill are playing with the lives of tens of millions of Americans, including the lives of transgender Americans and their families.

NCTE will continue to fight alongside the millions of Americans protesting this assault on their fundamental right to healthcare. We urge Senators to vote against this hatched-in-darkness bill, and to send a message to Senate Republicans that we will not allow transgender Americans to be stripped of the healthcare they need to survive. We will resist going backward at every turn."