This story mentions suicide. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 988.?

FRANKFORT — A high-priority Republican bill to ban the use of public funds for elective medical care for inmates is nearly law after the House Judiciary Committee voted to advance it along party lines Wednesday.?

Republicans once again took issue with a Department of Corrections regulation that allowed transgender inmates to apply for treatments, arguing it was unfair to taxpayers to foot the bill.?

Democrats and those who testified against Senate Bill 2 said it would hurt a small population —? 67 transgender prisoners — currently taking hormone therapies and could face constitutional challenges under the Eighth Amendment’s ?ban on cruel and unusual punishments. ?

Chloe Atwater, an attorney with the Kentucky Equal Justice Center, testified that ending the treatments could land the state in costly lawsuits while the hormone treatments are cheap.

“The Supreme Court has stated that while the Eighth Amendment does not require comfortable prisons, it does not permit inhumane ones,” she said. “Humane conditions require ensuring that inmates receive adequate medical care, and denial of adequate medical care constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”?

Senate Majority Whip Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, SB 2’s sponsor, said he isn’t aware of any transgender surgeries on inmates that have happened on the public dime but wants to ensure they don’t happen.?

“These are folks that are in prison for committing crimes,” Wilson said. “I think we have to provide health care for them, but we don’t have to provide any elective surgeries.”?

Wilson also said it was “inappropriate” for the state DOC to implement the regulation in question internally.

In December, Beshear said the regulation would be pulled and aligned with an opinion from Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman that there is no federal requirement for the state to provide prisoners with gender-affirming care.

Still, Wilson and the bill’s supporters said they want to ensure in law the department cannot use public money to provide hormone treatments and other transition care. Those already on hormone replacement treatments would have to taper off and end them, according to his bill.?

House Majority Whip Jason Nemes, R-Middletown, said he has no issue with adults funding and accessing their own treatments.?

“I want to be very clear for the taxpayer: If somebody wants to have this kind of surgery, more power to them. That’s their business. An adult has the right to do that and I’ll fight for their right to do that. They have the right to have transgender surgeries,” Nemes said. “What we’re talking about here is public funding. Those who vote ‘no’ think you, the taxpayer, should have to pay for these transgender surgeries. I have no problem with them paying for their own but if you vote ‘no,’ you are saying the taxpayers should pay for transgender surgeries in our prisons. That’s the bottom line. No way around it.”?

The bill passed 15-3. Having already passed the Senate, where it originated, SB 2 needs only to pass the House before heading to Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk for a signature or veto. Should he veto it, the legislature has the votes to override him.?

Beshear has said he thinks inmates do not have the right to “any and all medical surgeries paid for entirely by tax dollars.”?

Rep. Jared Bauman, R-Louisville, praised the “fiscal common sense that, thankfully, is sweeping our nation.”?

“I’d just like to remind Kentuckians that anyone affected by this policy are certainly free to not break the laws of our great commonwealth, and thus carry on their treatment in their private life.”?

The debate: ‘Grandstanding’ or protecting public dollars??

Chris Hartman, the executive director of the Kentucky Fairness Campaign, said any public savings wouldn’t “outweigh the cost of mental health interventions that your jail staff are going to have to deal with — suicide watch, increased medications.”?

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 988.?

“If you just want to ban surgeries that are not happening in Kentucky, jails and prisons do that, but what you should not do is to deny the hormone replacement therapy that a minuscule number of Kentucky prisoners … is getting,” Hartman said. “You’re not saving anything here. You’re playing politics with one of the smallest and most vulnerable populations in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”??

Eric Russ, the executive director of the Kentucky Psychological Association, also testified against the bill and agreed that the savings would not balance the fallout.?

“Gender-based discrimination and rejection creates significant harm, including increasing the risk of suicide and escalating mental health challenges,” he said. “In particular, obstructing access to care being currently provided risks creating a mental health crisis in those individuals with increased anxiety, depression and other consequences. These additional mental health costs will likely add up over time, surpassing any purported savings and not paying for appropriate treatment.”?

Rep. Lindsey Burke, D-Lexington, said the bill is “grandstanding on the back of vulnerable people” while explaining her “no” vote.?

“The justice system isn’t perfect, and people do become incarcerated when they’re not guilty,” she said. “It would be a real shame to let one of those people die because we think poorly of who they consider themselves to be.”?

Rep. Pamela Steveneson, D-Louisville, said “we ought to back out of the business of telling doctors what to do.”?

“This is not about money,” she said. “This is about ‘we don’t like them.’”?

Committee chair Daniel Elliott, R-Danville, sees it as a straightforward issue. ?“I think the question is: should public funds — taxpayer funds — be used to pay for those who are convicted of crimes, to pay for elective transgender surgeries and procedures?” he said. “And the answer to that is: no.”