Make Me Smart Medical providers grapple with Trump's attempts to end gender-affirming care for minors
Feb 17, 2026
Samantha Fields, a senior Marketplace reporter covering health care, discusses the fallout from a proposed HHS rule targeting gender-affirming care for minors. She outlines what such care includes. She describes hospitals preemptively closing programs, state-level restrictions, tracking challenges, providers’ moral injury, alternative uninsured care models, and families relocating for treatment.
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What Gender-Affirming Care Entails
- Gender-affirming care includes puberty blockers, hormones, and rarely surgery for minors.
- Samantha Fields explains these treatments align a youth's body with their gender identity and are age-dependent.
Hospitals Pull Back Over Funding Threats
- HHS proposed a rule to strip Medicare/Medicaid funding from hospitals offering gender-affirming care to minors.
- Hospitals fear losing large revenue shares and are preemptively closing programs despite the rule not being finalized.
Medicare/Medicaid Reliance Drives Decisions
- Hospitals worry the rule could be existential because Medicare/Medicaid can comprise up to 80% of revenue.
- That financial dependence is driving some hospitals to stop offering pediatric gender-affirming services now.