News
Trumpcare appears defeated, but LGBT opponents remain wary
‘I don’t think we’ve heard the last from the GOP on healthcare’
President Trump poses in cab of firetruck on day GOP support for Trumpcare crumbles. (Image courtesy of C-SPAN)
After Republican support crumbled for Trumpcare, LGBT advocacy groups that sought to preserve the Affordable Care Act are quietly confident it will remain in place — although they say they’re keeping a watchful eye.
Late Monday night, two Republicans — Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) — announced they’d vote “no” on the latest version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). With Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) already opposed to the bill, the defections of Lee and Moran assured defeat of the bill if it came to the floor.
David Stacy, government affairs director for the Human Rights Campaign, said despite the apparent failure of Trumpcare, now is not the time to rest.
“While we’re glad to see the Trump/McConnell plan to strip health care from millions of Americans has failed up until this point, by no means are we claiming complete victory,” Stacy said. “The ACA provides unprecedented access to health care for LGBTQ people and we simply cannot afford for this access to be taken away. HRC will continue to engage our millions of members across the country and keep the pressure on Congress to reject any proposals to dismantle our health care system.”
LGBT groups like the Human Rights Campaign oppose Trump’s effort to repeal and replace the ACA on the basis that many LGBT people gained insurance as a result of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement and because the measure would deny Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood, which touts its health services for LGBT people.
McConnell has pledged to bring to the floor legislation in the coming days that would repeal Obamacare without offering any replacement — a move that in addition to eliminating health care for millions of people would explode the deficit.
Even though the same bill passed the chamber in 2015, it’s unlikely to pass this time around without assurance of a presidential veto. Key Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Shelly Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) — have said they’d vote “no.” Collins voted “no” in 2015 and said she’d do so again.
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, nonetheless cautioned “cynical efforts to hurt Americans for political purposes” may still be on the way despite projections Trumpcare is dead.
“We are not confident that efforts to defund Planned Parenthood are dead,” Keisling said. “We are not confident that efforts to take healthcare away from trans service members and veterans are dead. We will continue to fight side-by-side with so many allies to make sure our healthcare system is improved and not dismantled and made accessible only to the wealthy. We are extremely confident that our side will fight harder and with solidarity to protect people’s lives than the powers that be will fight to hurt us.”
After the loss of GOP support for the Better Care Reconciliation Act, President Trump took to Twitter to lambast lawmakers, blaming the failure on “all of the Democrats and a few Republicans.”
“Most Republicans were loyal, terrific & worked really hard,” Trump tweeted. “We will return!”
The White House has maintained Trump made phone calls to lawmakers and met with them to encourage their support for the Senate health care bill. On Wednesday, Trump was set to hold a working lunch at the White House State Dining Room with Republican members of Congress to discuss health care.
Nonetheless, the general perception is Trump has been disengaged from efforts to repeal Obamacare — a signature promise during Trump’s presidential campaign. On Monday, the same day GOP support for Trumpcare crumbled, Trump posed for a photo-op in the cab of a firetruck parked on the White House lawn for “Made in America” week.
White House Deputy Principal Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders blamed Democrats on Tuesday for the failure of Trumpcare, even though they’re in the minority in Congress and weren’t responsible for GOP withdrawal from the bill.
“They’re responsible for passing Obamacare,” Sanders said. “They’re responsible for creating the mess that we’re in. They’re responsible for being unwilling to work with Republicans in any capacity to help fix a system that they know is completely flawed and have publicly said so. I think that it’s pretty clear, and I think the responsibility lies on their shoulders.”
Gregory Angelo, president of Log Cabin Republicans, said contrary to expectations that Trumpcare is dead, he wouldn’t rule out Republican efforts to reform health care law.
“I don’t think we’ve heard the last from the GOP on healthcare,” Angelo said. “Whether it’s repeal, replace, reform, or some combination thereof, the continuing collapse of Obamacare, spikes in premiums and insurer exits from exchanges will necessitate that Republicans act sooner or later.”
Trump himself may take unilateral action. On Tuesday, he told reporters “we’re probably in that position where we’ll let Obamacare fail” in the aftermath of crumbling support for the bill.
“We’re not going to own it. I’m not going to own it,” Trump said. “I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it. We’ll let Obamacare fail and then the Democrats are going to come to us and they are going to say ‘how do we fix it, how do we fix it’ or ‘how do we come up with a new plan?’”
Trump’s position for some time has been that Obamacare is a dead program, but his remarks raise questions about whether the Trump administration would seek to administratively undermine the Affordable Care Act, such as by denying subsidies to health care recipients who qualify for them.
At the White House, Sanders wouldn’t commit the president to support the subsidies and the executive sustenance required under the Affordable Care Act.
“As has been the case since we got here, we’ll continue to keep you posted as decisions and changes are made, or if they’re not,” Sanders said.
Meanwhile, bipartisan talks on health care are happening. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) told the Daily Beast a bipartisan group of senators spoke Tuesday night about possible fixes to Obamacare that don’t involve repealing the law.
“Democrats, Republicans, and I think one independent slipped in as well,” Carper was quoted as saying. “I’m more encouraged at this point than I’ve been in quite some while that we might somehow be able to find a road, a path together.”
A major criticism from LGBT groups — as well as HIV/AIDS advocacy groups — was the inclusion in GOP plans to replace Obamacare of a provision to undo the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. That rose the income level to qualify for care under that program to 133 percent of the poverty level — provided the states agreed to it.
An estimated 40 percent of people with HIV — a disease that still disproportionately affects LGBT people — received coverage under Medicaid.
Carl Schmid, deputy executive director of AIDS Action, said he expects Obamacare to remain the law and is “greatly relieved,” but nonetheless noted the need for change of the health care system.
“There is much that the administration can do through regulation to alter health care — private insurance plans and Medicaid — and [we] expect them to do that, actually they have started to make changes as well,” Schmid said. “As they make changes, we want to make sure they do not restrict access and benefits and loosen important patient protections. Legislative fixes are still needed, premiums and patient cost-sharing are too high, and we hope that they can happen on a bi-partisan basis.”
Israel
Activist recalls experience in Tel Aviv after Israel-Iran war began
Marty Rouse was part of Jewish Federations of North America Pride mission
A long-time activist who was in Israel last month when its war with Iran began has returned to D.C.
Marty Rouse traveled to Israel on June 6 with the Jewish Federations of North America. The 5-day mission ended the night before the annual Tel Aviv Pride parade was scheduled to take place.
Mission participants met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and several LGBTQ activists in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. They visited the Western Wall, the Nova Music Festival site, and Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel that is less than a mile from the country’s border with the Gaza Strip. Mission participants also visited Sderot, a city that is roughly a mile from the Hamas-controlled enclave, a veterans rehabilitation facility, a new LGBTQ health center and the Aguda: The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel in Tel Aviv.
Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed upwards of 360 partygoers and kidnapped dozens more at the music festival that was taking place at a campground near Re’im, a kibbutz that is roughly 10 miles southwest of Nir Oz. The militants killed or took hostage nearly a quarter of Nir Oz’s residents. They also took control of Sderot’s police station.
Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Chen Arieli spoke at the mission’s closing party that took place at the Sheraton Grand, a hotel that overlooks Tel Aviv’s beachfront, on June 12.
Rouse and other mission participants planned to stay in Tel Aviv for the Pride parade, which was scheduled to take place the following day. He and Gordie Nathan, another mission participant who lives in Palm Springs, Calif., had checked into a nearby hotel that was less expensive.
“We said our farewells,” recalled Rouse when he spoke with the Washington Blade in D.C. on June 24. “We went to our hotels, and we get the warning, and then all hell broke loose.”
Israel early on June 13 launched airstrikes against Iran that targeted the country’s nuclear and military facilities.
Rouse said mission organizers told him and other participants who remained in Tel Aviv to meet at the Sheraton Grand for breakfast and dinner — Israel’s airspace was closed in anticipation of an Iranian counterattack, and authorities cancelled the Pride parade.
He said he went to bomb shelters at least twice a night for three nights.
Israel’s Home Front Command during the war typically issued warnings about 10 minutes ahead of an anticipated Iranian missile attack. Sirens then sounded 90 seconds before an expected strike.
Rouse and Nathan walked to the Sheraton Grand on June 13 when the Home Front Command issued a 10-minute warning. They reached the hotel in a couple of minutes, and staff directed them to the bomb shelter.
“You know to walk slowly, everything’s fine,” recalled Rouse. “You get 10 minutes, so everything was fine when the alarm goes off.”
Rouse described the Sheraton Grand shelter as “well lit” with WiFi, a television, and air conditioning. He was watching an Israeli television station’s live coverage of the Iranian missile attack when he saw one hit an apartment building in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan.
A 74-year-old woman died and her boyfriend was seriously injured.
“I go over to look at the TV, just to watch,” recalled Rouse. “All of a sudden, you watch, and you see one bomb go and land and explode in Tel Aviv on TV. It landed and blew up.”
“I was like, okay, this is real, and so that was scary,” he added.
Rouse said the bomb shelter in the hotel where he and Nathan were staying after the mission ended was far less comfortable.
“It was dark. It was humid. It was hot. It was very uncomfortable,” said Rouse. “You really felt alone.”
Rouse and nearly everyone else on the mission who were in Tel Aviv when the war began left Israel on June 15. They boarded buses that took them to the Jordanian capital of Amman, which is a roughly 2 1/2-hour drive from Tel Aviv through the West Bank.
Rouse described the trip as “like a field trip” until they drove across the Jordan River and arrived at the Jordanian border crossing.
“You walk into this room, and instead of being in a well air-conditioned airport, you’re in this hot, humid, small place in the middle of the desert, packed with people, and those big, large, loud fans and pictures of military people on the walls,” he said. “It was almost like a Casablanca kind of feeling.”
Rouse said Jordanian authorities brought mission participants through customs in groups of 10. A Jewish Federations of North America liaison from Amman who previously worked as a tour guide for A Wider Bridge — a group that “advocates for justice, counters LGBTQphobia, and fights antisemitism and other forms of hatred” — went “behind closed doors” to ensure everyone was able to enter the country.
“It took a really long time,” Rouse told the Blade.
Mission participants arrived in Amman a short time later. They checked into their hotel and then had dinner at a restaurant.
“Now we feel like we’re safe and we’re in Amman,” recalled Rouse. “We’re sitting outside having a beautiful dinner.”
Iranian missiles passed over Amman shortly after Rouse and the other mission participants had begun to eat their dessert. They went inside the restaurant, and waited a few minutes before they boarded busses that brought them back to their hotel.
“No one was openly freaking out, which I was surprised by,” said Rouse.
The group was scheduled to fly from Amman to Cairo at 11 p.m. local time (4 p.m. ET) on June 16. They visited Jerash, an ancient city north of Amman, before their flight left Jordan.
“[The Jerash trip] actually took our minds off of everything,” said Rouse.
A Jewish Federations of North America contact met Rouse and the other mission participants at Cairo’s airport once their flight landed. Rouse arrived at JFK Airport in New York on June 17.
Trump-announced ceasefire ended 12-day war
President Donald Trump on June 23 announced a ceasefire that ended the 12-day war.
The U.S. three days earlier launched airstrikes that struck three Iranian nuclear sites. The ceasefire took effect hours after Iran launched missiles at a U.S. military base in Qatar.
Iran said the war killed more than 900 people in the country.
The Associated Press notes Iranian missiles killed 28 people in Israel. One of them destroyed Tel Aviv’s last gay bar on June 16.
The war took place less than two years after Oct. 7.
The Israeli government says Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed roughly 1,200 people on that day when it launched its surprise attack on the country. The militants also kidnapped more than 200 people.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed nearly 55,000 people in the enclave since Oct. 7. Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, has said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who the IDF killed last October, are among those who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel.
Rouse upon his return to the U.S. said he “was never as aware of the comfort of another human being than I was during that time.” Rouse affectionately called Nathan his “bomb shelter boyfriend” and even questioned the way he reacted to the missile alerts.
“He’s sitting on the edge of the bed and he goes, okay, I’m going to put on my socks and my shoes, and I say, really? You’re going to put on your socks,” Rouse told the Blade. “The fact that I was nervous, that putting on socks might have changed the direction of our lives, to me was like I can’t believe I said that to him.”
Rouse quickly added Nathan helped him remain calm.
“If I was by myself, those nights would have been long enough,” said Rouse. “It’s a totally different feeling to be with another human that you know than to be by yourself.”
Rouse also praised the Jewish Federations of North America.
“JFNA really sprung into action and started to figure out all options to get us all safely home,” said Rouse. “It was all about logistics. Staff worked around the clock identifying and then mobilizing to get us back to the states. It was a great team effort and I know I speak for everyone in expressing our deep appreciation for their dedication to getting us safely home.”
Congress
Congress passes ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ with massive cuts to health insurance coverage
Roughly 1.8 million LGBTQ Americans rely on Medicaid
The “Big, Beautiful Bill” heads to President Donald Trump’s desk following the vote by the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday, which saw two nays from GOP members and unified opposition from the entire Democratic caucus.
To partially offset the cost of tax breaks that disproportionately favor the wealthy, the bill contains massive cuts to Medicaid and social safety net programs like food assistance for the poor while adding a projected $3.3 billion to the deficit.
Policy wise, the signature legislation of Trump’s second term rolls back clean energy tax credits passed under the Biden-Harris administration while beefing up funding for defense and border security.
Roughly 13 percent of LGBTQ adults in the U.S., about 1.8 million people, rely on Medicaid as their primary health insurer, compared to seven percent of non-LGBTQ adults, according to the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute think tank on sexual orientation and gender identities.
In total, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cuts will cause more than 10 million Americans to lose their coverage under Medicaid and anywhere from three to five million to lose their care under Affordable Care Act marketplace plans.
A number of Republicans in the House and Senate opposed the bill reasoning that they might face political consequences for taking away access to healthcare for, particularly, low-income Americans who rely on Medicaid. Poorer voters flocked to Trump in last year’s presidential election, exit polls show.
A provision that would have blocked the use of federal funds to reimburse medical care for transgender youth was blocked by the Senate Parliamentarian and ultimately struck from the legislation — reportedly after the first trans member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) and the first lesbian U.S. senator, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), shored up unified opposition to the proposal among Congressional Democrats.
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court to consider bans on trans athletes in school sports
27 states have passed laws limiting participation in athletics programs
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear two cases involving transgender youth challenging bans prohibiting them from participating in school sports.
In Little v. Hecox, plaintiffs represented by the ACLU, Legal Voice, and the law firm Cooley are challenging Idaho’s 2020 ban, which requires sex testing to adjudicate questions of an athlete’s eligibility.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals described the process in a 2023 decision halting the policy’s enforcement pending an outcome in the litigation. The “sex dispute verification process, whereby any individual can ‘dispute’ the sex of any female student athlete in the state of Idaho,” the court wrote, would “require her to undergo intrusive medical procedures to verify her sex, including gynecological exams.”
In West Virginia v. B.P.J., Lambda Legal, the ACLU, the ACLU of West Virginia, and Cooley are representing a trans middle school student challenging the Mountain State’s 2021 ban on trans athletes.
The plaintiff was participating in cross country when the law was passed, taking puberty blockers that would have significantly reduced the chances that she could have a physiological advantage over cisgender peers.
“Like any other educational program, school athletic programs should be accessible for everyone regardless of their sex or transgender status,” said Joshua Block, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project. “Trans kids play sports for the same reasons their peers do — to learn perseverance, dedication, teamwork, and to simply have fun with their friends,” Block said.
He added, “Categorically excluding kids from school sports just because they are transgender will only make our schools less safe and more hurtful places for all youth. We believe the lower courts were right to block these discriminatory laws, and we will continue to defend the freedom of all kids to play.”
“Our client just wants to play sports with her friends and peers,” said Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Tara Borelli. “Everyone understands the value of participating in team athletics, for fitness, leadership, socialization, and myriad other benefits.”
Borelli continued, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last April issued a thoughtful and thorough ruling allowing B.P.J. to continue participating in track events. That well-reasoned decision should stand the test of time, and we stand ready to defend it.”
Shortly after taking control of both legislative chambers, Republican members of Congress tried — unsuccessfully — to pass a national ban like those now enforced in 27 states since 2020.
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Supreme Court to consider bans on trans athletes in school sports
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