Health Care Bill Directs HHS Secretary to Develop 'Standards for Measuring Gender'--As Opposed to 'Male' and 'Female'

Monday, July 20, 2009

By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer



(CNSNews.com) – The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee’s health care legislation will give the Health and Human Services secretary the authority to develop “standards of measuring gender” -- as opposed to using the traditional "male" and "female" categories -- in a database of all who apply or participate in government-run or government-supported health care plans.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is required by the proposed law -- The Affordable Health Choices Act, which was voted out of committee on July 15 -- to create a database within one year of the law’s enactment that will include detailed information about those who sign up for government-run or supported health care programs, including their race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, language and disabilities.

The proposed law states that the database can use the Office of Management and Budget “standards for race and ethnicity measures.”

But for the collection of “gender” data, instead of using the categories “male” and “female," the legislation calls for “developing standards for the measurement of gender.”

The language is found on page 410 and 411 of the 615 document under SEC. 332: Understanding Health Disparities: Data Collection and Analysis.

The legislation says that the purpose of the database is to “detect and monitor trends in health disparities” at “federal and state levels.”

The legislation also says the database will be made available to a wide range of federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control, the Office for Minority Health, and the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality.

It also stipulates that the database will be secure and will protect individual privacy.

Merriam Webster dictionary defines “gender” as a subset of a grammatical class of certain languages; sex, i.e., male or female, as its second definition; and the third definition refers to “the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex.”

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “sex” refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women. “Gender” refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.

Like the Senate HELP health care bill, the House version--America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009--does not include in its proposed database of participants categories for “male,” “female,” or “sex,” but uses “gender” as a category for data collection.

“Gender identity” is routinely used by homosexual groups to define differences in sexual orientation, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and, in some cases, “questioning.”

Okay, stop the earth right now, please. I'll be exiting right here. Thanks for the ride.