a denver judge closed the courtroom so colorado's doctors could testify without their names on it
via The Colorado Sun, reported by John Ingold, and The Advocate.
A judge in Denver emptied her own courtroom this week so that doctors could say out loud why they will not write a prescription.
Denver District Court Judge Ericka F. H. Englert closed the proceedings to the public and the press while physicians testified in the contempt trial against Children's Hospital Colorado. The doctors had asked for anonymity. Their reason, per the Colorado Sun, was that they are afraid of being punished by the federal government for the care they used to give.
That is the whole story in one image. American physicians testifying about their own patients from behind a closed door, in a state where the care is legal and a court has ordered them to provide it.
the order children's colorado won
Here is how a hospital ends up on trial for not doing what it won.
Children's suspended gender-affirming care for trans kids in December, after federal funding threats. Four transgender young people and their families sued, saying the hospital discriminated against them when it stopped writing prescriptions for patients under 18. In May, the Colorado Supreme Court issued an injunction: the hospital is prohibited from refusing medically necessary gender-affirming care. Four months later, nothing has resumed.
The hospital's explanation is a jurisdictional shrug. The doctors are not employed by Children's. They work for the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine, and they have refused to start prescribing again because they believe they could face civil sanctions or criminal charges from the federal government. So the hospital is under a court order, the doctors are not, and the children are in the gap.
The case now carries class-action status covering hundreds of patients under 18, represented by attorneys John McHugh and Paula Greisen. If Judge Englert finds the hospital intentionally violated her court's orders, the fines run to $50,000 a day.
a second federal investigation
Then on Thursday the hospital's lawyers put something new on the record. There is a second federal investigation. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. referred Children's over an allegation in the agency's "Wolves in White Coats" report: that the hospital billed for puberty blockers for patients aged 9 to 17 using the wrong diagnosis codes. A coding complaint, arriving while the hospital is in court for not treating the same children.
Children's response: "We take our obligations related to billing, coding and regulatory compliance seriously, and we have no evidence of any billing improprieties."
Its attorney, Elliot Peters, put it less carefully, and better. He called what is happening "a reign of terror by the federal government against transgender care providers."
terror does not need a law
He is describing his own client's behavior as well, whether he means to or not. Terror works by not needing a law. There is no statute making it a crime to prescribe a puberty blocker in Colorado. There is a state Supreme Court injunction saying you must. What there is instead is an investigation, then a second investigation, then a report with a title written for a press release, and a set of doctors who have done the arithmetic and decided their licences and their liberty are worth more than somebody else's kid.
the mothers who testified
Meanwhile, in the part of the courtroom that stayed open, mothers testified. Their children cannot get hormone therapy or puberty blockers at the hospital that is under orders to provide them. Some families are driving out of state.
The hearing continued Friday. A third day is scheduled for late next week.
