Rising Malpractice Insurance Rates Hinder Clinics from Offering Transgender Procedures to Minors

Rising malpractice premiums are blocking the creation of new transgender “clinics” for teenagers.

“I didn’t anticipate that it was going to be a big deal,” Andy Rowe, the healthcare operations director for The Project of the Quad Cities, told Time magazine.

Rowe had called the clinic’s insurance broker to inquire about getting a new provider added to the organization’s malpractice policy.

The Project of the Quad Cities is an LGBTQ+ clinic located in Moline, Illinois, which has been trying to provide transgender-related medical procedures for minors living across state lines, where such practices are banned.

The organization embarked on this endeavor in June, and by early November, Rowe found that more than a dozen malpractice insurers had declined to offer the clinic a policy.

After five months of searching for malpractice insurance, Rowe finally received a quote for a policy that would allow The Project of the Quad Cities to offer transgender procedures for children, but “that’s when he realized finding a policy was only the first hurdle,” Time reported.

It turned out that coverage that Rowe had anticipated would cost $8,000 to $10,000 a year was instead quoted at $50,000.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, family medicine physician Anjali Taneja said the clinic she works at was quoted “double what we paid a few years ago” to cover transgender procedures for adults.

While independent clinics and medical practices have been relocating across state lines to offer such medical procedures to minors, they are quickly finding out that obtaining malpractice insurance on the commercial marketplace has become a barrier, even in states that allow such practices.

Insurance industry advocates say these higher premiums are justified due to increasing legislation regarding transgender medical procedures for minors, meaning that clinics are at an increased risk of being sued.

“If state laws increase the risk of civil liability for health professionals, premiums will be adjusted accordingly and appropriately to reflect the level of financial risk incurred by the insured,” Mike Stinson, vice president of public policy and legal affairs at the Medical Professional Liability Association, said.

Stinson added that if state laws make an activity illegal, insurance simply will not cover it.

Those who are opposed to minors receiving transgender-related procedures have recently been pointing to “detransitioners,” who have filed lawsuits against the doctors who allowed them to undergo such medical procedures.

In the meantime, malpractice premiums are currently serving to put a damper on clinics that want to offer or have been offering surgeries and hormone “therapies” that mutilate children’s bodies.

Related– Watch Rep. Crenshaw on Transgenderism: ‘We Have to Discuss Science’

House Energy & Commerce Committee

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