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HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra Openly Admits To Hijacking Catholic Hospitals

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Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra openly admitted that his Cabinet department will withhold all health care reimbursements from Catholic administrated hospitals if they refuse to perform transgender surgeries.  Rep. Mary Miller, chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, asked Becerra:

“Can you commit here today that your department will not withhold federal funding from hospitals or doctors who refuse to provide the gender-affirming care that you are, you know, mandating, if it violates their religious beliefs?”

Secretary Becerra's response:

“You’re going somewhere completely different. First, you started talking about how a doctor should have the rights to not offer particular care. Then you stretch it out to provide for the system-wide services. Very different,”

Secretary Becerra is dissembling here.  He knows full well that HHS reimburses both hospitals and doctors for their health care services and withholding reimbursements from hospitals effectively forces all hospitals' surgeons to offer transgender surgeries.  They lose their hospital privileges if their actions cause HHS to end all reimbursements.

The story of Secretary Becerra's testimony to the House Education and Workforce Committee:

https://thefederalist.com/2024/05/16/hhs-secretary-admits-the-feds-will-punish-hospitals-that-resist-trans-mutilation/

HHS Secretary Admits The Feds Will Punish Hospitals That Resist Trans Mutilation
By Jordan Boyd - May 16, 2024

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra admitted during a congressional hearing on Wednesday that hospitals with religious objections to transgender mutilation will lose federal funding.

“Can you commit here today that your department will not withhold federal funding from hospitals or doctors who refuse to provide the gender-affirming care that you are, you know, mandating, if it violates their religious beliefs?” Republican Rep. Mary Miller, chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, asked Becerra.

Becerra ignored the question and scolded Miller for asking it.

“You’re going somewhere completely different. First, you started talking about how a doctor should have the rights to not offer particular care. Then you stretch it out to provide for the system-wide services. Very different,” Becerra said.

https://twitter.com/RepMaryMiller/status/1790792637739303206
Undeterred by Becerra’s obfuscating, Miller pressed the Biden appointee further.

“You put out this guidance and doctors need to know what are you going to do if they refuse to provide this care?” Miller asked again.

Becerra claimed doctors with “religious objections” to cutting off the breasts and genitals of physically healthy people are protected under conscience objection rules and are “not required” to wreak irreversible damage on bodies.

The Biden administration, however, has worked overtime to undo these protections. Under President Joe Biden, health-care workers whose conscience rights were verifiably violated could not secure legal recourse. Sometimes they were forced to either leave their job or violate their faith to stay employed.

“So you’re committing here today that you will not withhold federal funding?” Miller asked.

“Doctors don’t get federal funding, ma’am,” Beccera replied. [ A patent lie ]

“But the hospitals do,” Miller noted. “Doctors are working in these hospitals.”

Despite Becerra’s dodging, Miller asked again if the Biden administration would punish “health-care facilities” by withholding federal funding if they refused to participate in transing children and adults.

It was only then that the secretary admitted hospitals that fail to carry out the regime’s agenda will suffer financial retaliation from the federal government.

“If a health-care facility is violating the law and not providing the service they are required to, they are not entitled to federal funding,” Becerra said.

Becerra’s confession comes mere weeks after HHS finalized a rule amending President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act to prohibit providers that benefit from taxpayer funds from denying ill-named “care” such as chemical castration and transgender mutilation to anyone. Just about every large health-care provider accepts federal funds through programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.

A growing number of people — especially children — who undergo social or physical “transitions,” such as adopting false pronouns, undergoing mutilation, or taking sterilizing drugs, suffer harrowing, life-threatening consequences. Yet Democrats have made extremist gender ideology and all of its consequences a hallmark of their bureaucratic agenda.


   
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The official and semiofficial Catholic press has not covered Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra's admission, but there has been some reaction from conservative Catholics:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/catholic-groups-pummel-hhs-secretary-becerra-after-heated-exchange-with-gop-lawmaker-on-transgender-surgeries

Catholic groups pummel HHS secretary after heated exchange with GOP rep on transgender surgeries
CatholicVote president blasts Biden admin's 'overt hostility toward institutions of faith'
By Elizabeth Elkind - May 16, 2024

Catholic groups and other conservative organizations are going after Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra after a GOP lawmaker accused him of withholding federal funds from hospitals that do not perform transgender surgeries on religious grounds.

Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., clashed with Becerra at a heated House hearing on Wednesday, demanding that he commit to not blocking federal dollars from doctors or hospitals "that refuse to provide the gender-affirming care that you're mandating if it violates their religious beliefs."

"You're going somewhere completely different. First, you're talking about how a doctor should have the rights to not offer particular care. Then you stretch it out to provide for the system-wide services… very different," Becerra said in a clip later shared by Miller.

Miller replied, "You've put out this guidance and doctors do need to know what are you going to do if they refuse to provide this care?"

"A doctor, if that doctor has religious objections, that doctor under these rules is not required to offer the care," Becerra said, adding doctors "don't get federal funding."

When Miller pressed him about the faith-based hospitals where many doctors work, he said, "If a health care facility is violating the law and not providing the service they're required to, they are not entitled to the resources."

Becerra told Miller earlier in the exchange, "If a provider for religious reasons objects, they are not forced to provide any particular service."

But Miller posted on X after the hearing, "After attempting to lie, HHS Secretary Becerra says the quiet part out loud. Joe Biden’s government will withhold funds from religious hospitals that refuse to provide sex-change operations for young children."

Miller grilled Becerra on accusations that a new Health Department rule would tie hospitals' hands on transgender surgeries. (Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images)

CatholicVote President Brian Burch told Fox News Digital, "Secretary Becerra has made a career of targeting Catholics. Now, in his disdain for faith-based health care institutions and medical professionals, including the numerous Catholic hospital systems across the country, he is threatening the care of millions of Americans."

"This administration has done more harm to the Catholic faith and religious Americans than any which has preceded it. It is time for the American people to take a stand against this administration’s overt hostility toward institutions of faith. November can’t come soon enough," he said.

Solidarity HealthShare President Chris Faddis said the recent HHS rule, which prohibits health programs that get federal dollars from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age or sex, including whether a patient identifies as LGBTQ+, confirms "our grave concern that his agency has no intention of honoring the empty promise to protect religious freedom"

"These rules mandate gender transition surgeries even when it violates the faith of religious doctors and health care systems, not to mention their best medical judgment," Faddis said.

Katy Talento, executive director of the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries and a former Trump administration health adviser, said the rule would force hospitals to provide transgender surgeries "or else lose access to federal funding to care for the poor and elderly, such as Medicaid and Medicare."

"Instead of helping young people embrace how God created them as male or female, the Biden administration wants to permanently alter their bodies and force sterilization in many cases. Not only should hospitals use all available legal options to fight back, but Americans more broadly must wake up to this wicked agenda and roundly reject this wicked gender ideology at every turn," said Walker Wildmon, vice president of the American Family Association.

Fox News Digital reached out to HHS for comment.

The Roman Catholic Church operates 674 hospitals and 1,600 other health facilities, in all 50 states.  It is the largest nonprofit health care provider in the nation, accounting for 15% of all American hospital care.


   
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Abigail Nobel
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Posts: 751
 

So much for life, liberty, and property such as conscience.

This, right here, proves that when you create special demographic rights, inherent rights are no longer secure.


   
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