Abdul El-Sayed wants every American on a government health plan paid for with your taxes. He wants that plan to cover sex changes. And he wants it to cover people who are in the country illegally.
Put those together and you get taxpayer-funded sex changes for illegal immigrants. When conservatives point that out, El-Sayed ties it to "the original sin of racism."
El-Sayed won Michigan's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Aug. 4 and faces Republican Mike Rogers on November 3, AP reported. The seat is open because Sen. Gary Peters is retiring.
"Truly inclusive"
In March 2021, on a Boston University health policy podcast, El-Sayed said this, according to the Washington Free Beacon, which found the recording:
> "When you talk about care for transgender people, when you talk about care for immigrants, all of these things are going to be deeply politicized."
He went on:
> "And my hope, right, is that we would pass a Medicare for All that is truly inclusive and offers the full gamut of health care that any and everyone would need."
"The original sin of racism"
On Feb. 15, 2022, El-Sayed hosted his own podcast, America Dissected, with author Heather McGhee. This is what he said, from Crooked Media's published transcript of the episode:
> "A lot of the most difficult conversations break on the question of who deserves what care, right? … the prime example that conservatives will impose on a conversation about Medicare for All will be, Well, what do we do with the undocumented person who comes to this country and wants to get gender reassignment surgery on Medicare for All? Right? That's going to be the example that they're going to push forward because it captures a group of multiple marginalized people whom they want to cast as being undeserving, whether you're talking about people of color in the form of LatinX people, you're talking about trans folks, or you're talking about undocumented people. And all of this sort of breaks on this conception of the original sin of racism…"
He didn't argue that taxpayers shouldn't pay for it. He went after the people asking.
He still says it
This isn't just old podcast talk. In June, on the Head in the Office podcast, the Democratic nominee said, as the Daily Wire reported:
> "I believe that Medicare for all should cover all health care which is defined by what a patient needs in accordance with their doctor. So that includes reproductive rights, right? That includes gender-affirming care."
In that same answer he said that for patients under 18, the decision belongs to the patient, the parents and the doctor. "Gender-affirming care" means cross-sex hormones and sex-change surgery. Under his plan, taxpayers would pay for it, for minors too, with a parent's sign-off.
His campaign website promises to "extend it to every single American from cradle to grave without premiums, copays, or deductibles," and says healthcare decisions belong to a patient, their parents if they're a minor, and their doctor. "That includes reproductive and gender-affirming care."
And illegal immigrants are in. "A lot of folks will get up in arms when you say you want to provide health care for people who are undocumented," El-Sayed said at a 2017 health conference, the Free Beacon reported. He said covering them "just makes sense because it's good policy and efficient." He has also called for abolishing ICE.
What his campaign says
"Abdul wants to guarantee healthcare for every single American taxpayer and believes that medical decisions should be between a patient, their family, and their doctor," campaign spokesman Cole Wozniak told the Free Beacon.
The bottom line
El-Sayed wants Michigan paychecks to cover sex-change surgery, including for people who broke the law to get here. When conservatives object, he reaches for "the original sin of racism." Every quote above is his own.
Michigan votes November 3.
Sources: [Washington Free Beacon](https://freebeacon.com/democrats/el-sayed-denounced-conservatives-for-opposing-free-sex-changes-for-transgender-illegal-immigrants-called-for-universal-health-care-for-trans-undocumented-persons/), [Crooked Media / America Dissected transcript](https://crooked.com/podcast/the-sum-of-us-are-sick-with-heather-mcghee/), [Daily Wire](https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-bernie-sanders-proposal-not-extreme-enough-for-abdul-el-sayed), [El-Sayed for Senate](https://abdulforsenate.com/priority/medicare-for-all-the-path-to-a-healthier-america/), [AP](https://apnews.com/article/michigan-primary-senate-elsayed-stevens-60c79349b60ffbf24a34d60b76e130ed).
Cover photo: U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (public domain)