Unless you can come up with a different explanation , I think these words in the Democratic Party Manifesto Platform mean exactly that: “including coverage of all medically necessary care for gender transition.” “… gender confirmation surgery, and hormone therapy.” See for yourself: Here are pages 31 thru 35 of the Democratic Party Manifesto Platform.
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The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of people who reside in institutional settings, such as nursing homes and independent living facilities, and made clear that biases
within Medicaid create undue barriers to home- and community-based long-term services and supports. Democrats will work to eliminate waiting lists for home and community-based care and the institutional bias within Medicaid, making investments in building the capacity of the Medicaid system to provide home and community-based services. We will modernize Medicaid
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eligibility so people with disabilities do not have to work low-wage jobs to access needed services, and to ensure the spouses of people with disabilities can maintain a certain level of income and assets. We will also help Americans pay for long-term care by creating a tax credit for informal and family caregivers and increasing the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit.
Democrats will also pursue policies to improve nursing home staffing and quality standards, strengthen accreditation processes, and combat corporate abuses in nursing homes and
independent living facilities. And Democrats are strongly committed to protecting and enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act and fulfilling the promise of the Olmstead v. L.C. decision, which found institutional segregation of people with disabilities to be unlawful.
Eliminate Racial, Gender, and Geographic Health Inequities
The national statistics on American health care mask profound disparities in insurance rates, access to primary and specialized care, and disparate health outcomes, which are a symptom of those disparities in access. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the uninsured rate was nearly three times higher for Latinos and nearly twice as high for Black Americans as it was for whites. Some segments of the Asian American and Pacific Islander population faced uninsured rates rivaling those of Black Americans and Latinos, and more than one in five Native Americans and Alaska Natives was uninsured. Black children are far more likely than white children to suffer from asthma. Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Black Americans are diagnosed with diabetes at higher rates than whites. And average life expectancy is more than two years lower for rural Americans compared to those who live in metropolitan areas.
We recognize it is not enough to have a commitment to eliminating health disparities: we must have a plan. That is why Democrats will launch a sustained, government-wide effort, with
leadership at the highest levels, to eliminate racial, ethnic, gender, and geographic gaps in insurance rates, access to quality care, and health outcomes. That includes tackling the social, economic, and environmental inequities—the social determinants of health like poor housing, hunger, inadequate transportation, mass incarceration, air and water pollution, and gun violence—that contribute to worse health outcomes for low-income Americans and people of color.
We can and must fix these inequities by expanding coverage, making health care more affordable, and tackling implicit bias in our health care system. Democrats will ensure that
people with disabilities are never denied coverage based on the use of quality-adjusted life year (QALY) indexes. Democrats will ensure federal data collection and analysis is adequately funded and designed to allow for disaggregation by race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, geography, disability status, national origin, and other important variables, so that disparities in health coverage, access, and outcomes can be better understood and addressed.
We will expand access to health care for people living and working across the United States by extending Affordable Care Act coverage to Dreamers, and working with Congress to lift the
five-year waiting period for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program eligibility for low-income, lawfully present immigrants.
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Democrats remain committed to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which disproportionately affects communities of color and the LGBTQ+ community, and will support critical investments under the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund.
Protecting Native American Health
Native American tribes have for too long been forced to cope with insufficient access to health care and mental health services, nutrition services, and modern infrastructure. Democrats are committed to pursuing environmental justice and climate justice, including for Indigenous peoples and communities, and will invest significant new resources in clean water and wastewater infrastructure, clean energy generation and distribution, and sustainable and regenerative agriculture. And we will make mandatory and work toward full funding for the Indian Health Service as part of our commitment to pursuing strong nation-to-nation relationships and honoring the United States’ trust obligations to Native American communities.
Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice
Democrats are committed to protecting and advancing reproductive health, rights, and justice. We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion. We will repeal the Title X domestic gag rule and restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides vital preventive and reproductive health care for millions of people, especially low-income people, and people of color, and LGBTQ+ people, including in underserved areas.
Democrats oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to reproductive health and rights. We will repeal the Hyde Amendment, and protect and codify the
right to reproductive freedom. We condemn acts of violence, harassment, and intimidation of reproductive health providers, patients, and staff. We will address the discrimination and barriers that inhibit meaningful access to reproductive health care services, including those based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, income, disability, geography, and other factors.
Democrats oppose restrictions on medication abortion care that are inconsistent with the most recent medical and scientific evidence and that do not protect public health.
We recognize that quality, affordable comprehensive health care; medically accurate, LGBTQ+ inclusive, age-appropriate sex education; and the full range of family planning services are all essential to ensuring that people can decide if, when, and how to start a family. We are proud to be the party of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination in health care on the basis of sex and requires insurers to cover prescription contraceptives at no cost. These efforts have significantly reduced teen and unintended pregnancies by making it easier to decide whether, when, and how to have a child.
We believe that a person’s health should always come first. Democrats will protect the rights of all people to make personal health care decisions, and will reject the Trump Administration’s use of broad exemptions to allow medical providers, employers, and others to discriminate.
End of p.32
Protecting and Promoting Maternal Health
Black women are more than three times as likely to die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth compared to white women. To save mothers’ lives, Democrats will expand postpartum Medicaid coverage to a full year after giving birth, invest in rural maternal health, promote a diverse perinatal workforce, and implement implicit bias training for health professionals. We will support comprehensive solutions to address every dimension of the Black maternal health crisis in America and eliminate all racial and ethnic disparities in maternal health outcomes, and support policies and approaches that will at least halve our nation’s unacceptably high maternal mortality rate. We strongly and unequivocally support the decision to have a child, including by ensuring a safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth, and by providing services during pregnancy and after the birth of a child, including adoption and social support services, as well as protections against pregnancy discrimination. We are committed to creating a society where children are safe and can thrive physically, emotionally, educationally, and spiritually.
Protecting LGBTQ+ Health
We condemn the Trump Administration’s discriminatory actions against the LGBTQ+ community, including the dangerous and unethical regulations allowing doctors, hospitals, and
insurance companies to discriminate against patients based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Democrats will reverse this rulemaking and restore nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS in health insurance, including coverage of all medically necessary care for gender transition. We will also take action to guarantee that LGBTQ+ people and those living with HIV/AIDS have full access to needed health care and resources, including by requiring that federal health plans provide coverage for HIV/AIDS testing and treatment and HIV prevention medications like PrEP and PEP, gender confirmation surgery, and hormone therapy.
Democrats support increased community HIV prevention and testing programs which target Latino, Black, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Native American, and other at-risk
communities to address the increases of HIV. Democrats will recommit the federal government to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2025.
Democrats are proud that the Obama-Biden Administration lifted the discriminatory lifetime ban on blood donation by healthy gay and bisexual Americans. We will work to ensure blood
donation regulations are based on science, not fiction or stigma and that no American, when seeking to donate blood, will face more stringent limitations than any other simply because of who they are.
Strengthening and Supporting the Health Care Workforce
The COVID-19 pandemic has made plain to people across the country that our health care workers are heroes. Our doctors and nurses, our home health aides and physician’s assistants, our public health professionals, our home care workers and nursing home workers, and our cleaners
End of p.33
and service workers have shown up to work every day despite dire shortages of personal protective equipment. Far too many of them have lost their lives to this terrible disease, and
untold thousands are suffering the mental and emotional strain of losing far too many patients.
And yet, despite the critical role they play in our society and our economy, these frontline workers—a majority of whom are women of color—are often underpaid and lack access to paid
sick days, paid family and medical leave, health insurance, and other benefits critical for their own health and the health of patients.
Democrats believe that all jobs in the caring economy must come with family-sustaining wages, good benefits, access to paid leave, fair and predictable schedules, access to training and professional development, and the ability to join a union and collectively bargain. We believe all employers funded by taxpayer dollars must pay their workers at least $15 an hour and protect workers’ rights to organize.
Although health care jobs are among the fastest growing in the economy, demand for services still far outstrips supply, especially in primary care. We will invest in community health worker care-forces around the nation proven to prevent, manage, and better treat chronic illnesses, and empower first-time mothers with home visiting. We will close provider gaps and increase diversity in the health care profession by creating a robust pipeline of talent with career ladders for advancement. And we will also increase opportunities for community health workers to come from the communities they serve.
Investing in Health Science and Research
Scientific research is at the heart of medicine—and of health care. Democrats want the United States to be at the forefront of scientific research and discovery for the benefit of our people, our economy, and our global competitiveness. We will support increased and sustainable funding for health and medical research and federal grants across agencies, including at the National Cancer Institute and other components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the CDC, and the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. We will increase the federal investment in research and development for new medications through the NIH, and make sure that there is a return on that investment for taxpayers. We will also build on the foundation of the Obama-Biden Administration’s Cancer Moonshot to break down silos and accelerate research into cancer and cancer treatments by creating an agency with the sole mission of finding new cures and treatments for cancer and other diseases.
Democrats also support increasing funding for research into health disparities by race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, geographic area, and socioeconomic status, with a particular focus on how the social determinants of health contribute to differences in health outcomes. We support fully integrating people with disabilities in all stages of health and medical research to ensure outcomes reflect the true needs of Americans with disabilities.
Democrats will take steps to increase the diversity of principal investigators receiving federal grants, as well as of participants in federally supported clinical trials, to improve the quality and applicability of our medical research for women and people of color, who are too often left out of research on disease and medical responses to treatment options.
End of p.34
The Trump Administration’s systematic efforts to undermine, discredit, dismiss, fire, disempower, and diminish the contributions of scientists, in health science and other disciplines,
have weakened our public institutions, slowed the pace of scientific inquiry, and profoundly damaged America’s standing in the world. Democrats will protect the independence and
intellectual freedom of scientists, whether they are employed by the federal government or receiving federal grants in support of their research, and take steps to shield our scientific research agencies from future political interference.
PROTECTING COMMUNITIES AND BUILDING TRUST BY REFORMING OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
Our criminal justice system is failing to keep communities safe—and failing to deliver justice. America is the land of the free, and yet more of our people are behind bars, per capita, than anywhere else in the world. Instead of making evidence-based investments in education, jobs, health care, and housing that are proven to keep communities safe and prevent crime from occurring in the first place, our system has criminalized poverty, overpoliced and underserved Black and Latino communities, and cut public services. Instead of offering the incarcerated the opportunity to turn their lives around, our prisons are overcrowded and continue to rely on inhumane methods of punishment. Instead of treating those who have served their time as full citizens upon their return to society, too many of our laws continue to punish the formerly incarcerated, erecting barriers to housing, employment, and voting rights for millions of Americans.
Democrats believe we need to overhaul the criminal justice system from top to bottom. Police brutality is a stain on the soul of our nation. It is unacceptable that millions of people in our country have good reason to fear they may lose their lives in a routine traffic stop, or while standing on a street corner, or while playing with a toy in a public park. It is unacceptable that Black parents must have “the talk” with their children, to try to protect them from the very police officers who are supposed to be sworn to protect and serve them. It is unacceptable that more than 1,000 people, a quarter of them Black, have been killed by police every year since 2015.
Democrats also recognize that all too often, systematic cuts to public services have left police officers on the front lines of responding to social challenges for which they have not been trained, from homelessness to mental health crises to the opioid epidemic. We can and must do better for our communities.
Democrats know we can end the era of mass incarceration and dramatically reduce the number of Americans held in jails and prisons while continuing to reduce crime rates, which have fallen steadily from their peak nearly three decades ago. This is the moment to root out structural and systemic racism in our criminal justice system and our society, and reimagine public safety for the benefit of our people and the character of our country.
We must start by preventing people from entering the criminal justice system in the first place. Democrats believe we must break the school-to-prison pipeline that too often relies on arrests
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You can download the entire Democratic Party Manifesto Platform here:
https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/
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