Dr. Mehmet Oz is outraged at how much he believes it costs to create a penis.
While announcing proposals to restrict trans healthcare to minors on Thursday, Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Oz, 65, started listing what he felt were exorbitant prices for genitalia.
“A vaginoplasty—a procedure a child does not need—costs $60,000,” said an angry Oz. “Shockingly, a phalloplasty, the creation of a penis, costs, on average, in America, $150,000 per child.”
“I do believe, with doing some work, that these prices have continued to increase due to increased manufactured demand,” he continued. “A scrotalplasty, where you add testicles? That’s extra.”
It is unclear where the former TV doctor got these numbers. According to the Gender Confirmation Center, the price of a vaginoplasty is between $23,000 and $24,500, while the cost of a phalloplasty ranges between $35,000 and $50,000.
The rant came as Oz announced a notice of a proposed rule that “ends taxpayer funding of sex rejecting procedures for children in Medicaid and CHIP, full stop.”
Though Oz attempted to drum up outrage at the price tags for genitalia surgeries, minors seldom receive them.
Phalloplasties and vaginoplasties are not recommended to transgender children under eighteen years of age, according to The Boston Children’s Hospital Center for Gender Surgery and the Gender Confirmation Center. Transhealthcare.org notes, “It is extremely rare for patients under 18 to receive genital surgery.”
The latest Standards of Care released by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a global, interdisciplinary organization that sets standards for healthcare for transgender individuals, does not list a minimum age requirement to receive “bottom surgeries.” Still, it does not set the rules for hospitals.
Breast reduction and augmentation surgeries, aka “top surgeries,” have been available to minors, and the new trans healthcare restrictions announced by Kennedy and Oz would essentially outlaw them by financially crippling hospitals that offer the procedures.
Oz’s CMS will also begin the rulemaking process to prohibit hospitals from providing hormone therapy and puberty blockers to minors as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid. The USDA will also issue warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers of breast binders, which are tight garments that flatten breasts and masculinize chest appearance.
Though the announcement is chilling for transgender healthcare, the rules laid out by the Trump administration on Thursday are not law yet. There will be a 60-day public comment period and the rules will likely face legal challenges before going into effect.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, told the Daily Beast, “These rules are proposals, not binding law. Community members, healthcare providers, administrators, and our allies should be vocal in pushing back by sharing the ways these proposals would be devastating to their families and the healthcare community at large.”
The proposed new rules continue the GOP and the Trump administration’s ongoing battle against transgender care. In June, SCOTUS ruled in favor of a Tennessee ban on minors from seeking gender-affirming care. criminalizing gender-affirming care. However, it is unlikely to pass the Senate.
