HHS proposed rules would cut off Medicare and Medicaid payments for puberty blockers, hormone therapy and gender-related surgeries for people under 18, following the House's passage of the Protect Children's Innocence Act that would criminalize such care.Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz framed the package as protecting children, with Kennedy calling the treatments "not medicine" and "malpractice" and Oz describing them as "a Band-Aid on a much deeper pathology."Major medical groups, the ACLU and The Trevor Project warned the proposals would endanger transgender and nonbinary youth and promised legal challenges, while hospitals are already scaling back services and the House bill, passed 216 to 211, now heads to the Senate.