When a man who once graced daytime television now runs the agency that writes the rules for Medicare and Medicaid, Americans should listen when he says our kids are being treated like lab mice. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz warned this week that progressive ideology is pushing doctors toward experimental, irreversible treatments for minors, a concern he voiced in appearances and an opinion piece published December 18, 2025.
The federal government moved fast to match words with action, announcing proposed rules that would bar hospitals participating in Medicare and Medicaid from performing so-called sex-rejecting procedures on those under 18 and would forbid Medicaid and CHIP from paying for those interventions. HHS and CMS framed the moves as protections for children and as a means to ensure taxpayer dollars do not subsidize permanent, risky medical treatments for minors.
Dr. Oz and his deputy made the argument plainly: the international reviews and available evidence, they say, do not justify extraordinary interventions on young bodies. Officials pointed to studies and foreign health reviews that call the evidence for benefits weak while documenting risks such as infertility, impaired bone development, and potential long-term harms, and CMS estimated significant federal savings from curbing these practices.
Conservatives should celebrate this overdue pushback against a medical-industrial complex too willing to bend to ideological trends, and parents should be relieved that an agency of the federal government is finally putting a line between adults’ theories and children’s bodies. Too often doctors and hospitals face pressure to conform to fashionable ideas rather than to defend time-tested standards of care, and when administrators admit children were treated like laboratory subjects it confirms what concerned moms and dads have feared for years.
Predictably, the left and its media chorus are already howling about “political interference” and rights being trampled, but this isn’t about politics — it’s about stopping the intentional infliction of permanent harm on minors. Critics will try to frame reasonable safeguards as cruelty, yet the government’s obligation is to protect the vulnerable, not to bankroll experimental fads, a point highlighted widely as the administration moved to codify these protections.
Now is the moment for conservatives, parents, and every patriot who values childhood to stand firm: reject the notion that our children are test subjects and demand accountability from schools, hospitals, and professional associations that put ideology ahead of safety. Hold your representatives’ feet to the fire, support common-sense rules that preserve parental rights, and never let Washington or woke institutions normalize permanent medical interventions for children.
