by Mary Margaret Olohan
Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren want American taxpayers to pay for transgender surgeries.
The 2020 candidates spoke at a LGBTQ forum GLAAD, the Advocate and the Cedar Rapids Gazette hosted in Iowa on Sept. 20, according to Vox. Both Biden and Warren touched on taxpayer-funded sex reassignment surgeries.
Biden promised to make transgender surgery legal under Obamacare. “It does cover the surgery. It does cover transgender people,” he said. “It does cover across the board. … Every LGBTQ person as well as anyone else should be able to have full health care without any limitations.”
“No doctor can deny you. No hospital can tell you can’t get the service,” the former vice president added. “It is simply against the law when I’m president.”
Warren also weighed in on whether she supports taxpayer-funded transgender surgery. The Gazette’s Lyz Lenz reminded Warren that the presidential candidate formerly did not support gender affirming surgery for transgender inmates. Warren said in 2012, “I have to say, I don’t think it’s a good use of taxpayer dollars.”
Lenz also said Warren changed her opinion on this issue in January. “You just said we have to get everyone on board. How do we even do that?” the moderator asked.
“The way I think about this in America — equal means equal and that is true everywhere,” Warren said. “It’s true in the workplace, it’s true in marriage and it’s true in health care. And we have to be willing to get out there and fight for it. It’s true for people who are straight. It’s true for people who are gay, bi, trans, intersex. It’s true for everyone.”
“Medicare for all is not something that goes through the states. This is a direct commitment from the federal government to every single person in this country that you will have the full range of health care services that you need,” the Massachusetts senator continued.
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Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0. Photo “Elizabeth Warren” by Elizabeth Warren.
