Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., says he and other lawmakers are drafting legislation to prevent health care companies from being forced into covering elective transgender procedures.

"The state of Tennessee, Gov. [Bill] Lee is correct to ask for an investigation into this. This is not San Francisco or New York or Portland. This is Tennessee, for goodness' sake," Burchett said on Newsmax's "Prime News" Saturday in reference to Lee's call for an investigation into Vanderbilt University Medical Center's transgender health clinic in response to a Twitter thread accusing the clinic of engaging in gender-affirming procedures for high profitability.

"We're looking at it at the federal level. I would like to say that any elective surgery such as a sex change operation or anything like that would not be funded by Obamacare, would not be funded by the taxpayers. That's what we need to do at the federal level, and myself are drafting legislation [as] others have in the past to do just that.

"Democrats are completely against this and it's ridiculous. You're talking about children here. This is life-altering."

Burchett said even if someone mutilates a small boy, "he'll still be a little boy. The problem is it's life-altering, and it shouldn't be done. And we should know better than allowing parents of any child that is a minor to do this. They're chasing the dollars."

Lee is pressing the attorney general in Tennessee to look into the VUMC clinic.

"The 'pediatric transgender clinic' at Vanderbilt University Medical Center raises serious moral, ethical and legal concerns. We should not allow permanent, life-altering decisions that hurt children or policies that suppress religious liberties, all for the purpose of financial gain," Lee's statement reads. "We have to protect Tennessee children, and this warrants a thorough investigation."

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