When a hospital is not supposed to perform transgender procedures, and they do it anyway, that’s bad enough. The idea of radical socialists mutilating brainwashed children is disgusting. Yet, one hospital (that we know of) decided to take the deceit a step further.

Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) has formally acknowledged deceitful and fraudulent behavior during the years they provided inappropriate medical procedures to children. They misled the public repeatedly and have been forced to admit this.

The Federalist previously reported that the announcement in May regarding a settlement between TCH and both the Department of Justice and the Texas Attorney General's Office was premature. The May agreement was only an agreement in principle on several topics that still needed to be negotiated to produce a signed and executed contract.

The final settlement agreement has now been signed and released, and it raises serious concerns. A summary filed in federal court states:

“This case involves fraud related to Medicaid. Texas Children’s Hospital and the affiliated doctors provided 'gender-affirming care' to patients in violation of the requirements of Texas’s Medicaid program, attributing these treatments to false diagnoses. The affected patients were primarily part of Texas Children’s Health Plan, a Medicaid managed care organization that knowingly or recklessly failed to prevent this fraudulent activity. These entities, along with the doctors involved, violated the False Claims Act and the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act.”

A former TCH nurse, Vanessa Sivadge, was the whistleblower who exposed the entire scandal. She was represented in the lawsuit by the Burke Law Group.

Coverage in publications like the Houston Chronicle state that TCH has agreed to stop providing transgender procedures. However, the information is often unclear, especially with unapologetic and distracting sentences like this:

“The probe into the hospital was then expanded in 2024 after a nurse alleged the hospital was obscuring its care for transgender youth by intentionally miscoding patients’ treatments in order to receive Medicaid payments.”

This is no longer just an allegation, and the hospital knows it. By signing the settlement agreement, TCH has acknowledged that it concealed transgender procedures using fraudulent billing codes.

To cover the costs of transgender procedures for children, TCH and its providers falsely diagnosed those children with non-existent illnesses and subsequently billed insurance for the treatment of these fabricated conditions.

Under the terms of the settlement, TCH agrees to “permanently cease all sex-rejecting procedures” and “irrevocably terminate” the appointments and clinical privileges of a list of doctors who participated in those procedures. The hospital has also committed to implementing a comprehensive set of administrative and compliance measures to ensure that such procedures do not occur again. This includes establishing a “compliance and ethics program.”

The hospital also agreed to open a detransition clinic to provide medical treatment to children mutilated by sex-rejecting procedures; TCH has committed to opening that clinic within 90 days.

Still, the punishment is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. The hospital agreed to pay $8,576,000 to the State of Texas, and an additional $1,715,200 to Sivadge, the former TCH nurse, while also making a separate payment in an undisclosed amount for her attorneys’ fees and legal costs.

A nurse goes out on a limb to expose the dirt bag radicals who are ripping off Medicaid as well as the taxpayers, and a hospital that reports annual revenue of a little over $3.8 billion, with total assets near $8.5 billion, gets this measly judgment against them.

It’s understandable that the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, is excited in principle about the settlement, stating:

“This settlement sends an unmistakable message: if you put radical ideology over children’s health, my office will go after you.”

It’s great that this maniacal insistence to ruin children’s lives has been exposed, but these institutions will only change if they are punished monetarily. The amount of money these Serious charges are costing TCH is a drop in the bucket.

Sivadge acted correctly, and while Paxton achieved a moral victory, true justice has not been served. TCH has misled the American public and defrauded Medicaid. Therefore, a $10 million penalty for a hospital with $8.5 billion in assets is not a fair consequence, especially for an institution that should be safeguarding children rather than ruining their lives.

Milt Harris——Bio and Archives

Milt spent thirty years as a sales and operations manager for an international manufacturing company. He is also a four-time published author on a variety of subjects. Now, he spends most of his time researching and writing about conservative politics and liberal folly.