Thread: The Coming Transgender Healthcare Battle

The Coming Transgender Healthcare Battle

JAZZ SHAWPosted at 12:31 pm on April 30, 2018



The Trump administration is once again being lambasted in social justice circles for rewriting federal guidelines covering health care for transgender people. This comes as the result of a Texas court shooting down the rules imposed under the Obama administration describing a failure to provide certain “transition” services to people as discrimination under the Civil Rights Act. Rather than fighting the judge on that one, the White House is rewriting the rule and they’re widely expected to drop the transgender requirement as part of being discrimination based on sex.

Instead of appealing the judge’s injunction, the Trump administration has opted to rewrite the rule, which applies to health care providers and insurers receiving federal funds.

Roger Severino, head of the department’s Office for Civil Rights, said the rewrite will address the “reasonableness, necessity and efficacy” of the Obama-era requirement. He refused to discuss specifics, as the revision is under White House review before its official release.

Groups representing transgender people expect the Obama protections to be gutted and are preparing to take the administration to court.

“The proposed rollback does fit into a pattern of transphobia and anti-LGBT sentiment in this administration,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a lawyer with Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization.

Too many of the arguments being raised in advance of the release of the new rules make no sense or simply fly in the face of established science. For example, let’s take the question of whether or not people suffering from gender dysphoria should be eligible to receive medical treatment and have it covered by their insurance policy. Obviously they should. But what kind of treatment? Despite some (though not all) professional medical associations changing their description of the syndrome, gender dysphoria is still an obvious mental illness or, at a minimum, a case of extremely confused thinking. Medical help should clearly be made available to attempt to correct that.

But that doesn’t mean that you should also be immediately lined up to be pumped full of unnatural (for your gender) hormones or have functional body parts lopped off or modified. Nor should insurance companies be mandated by the government to cover such procedures unless they choose to do so of their own accord. When a person shows up to see their doctor presenting symptoms of clinical lycanthropy we don’t ask the insurance company to cover the cost of buying them a werewolf costume. And it wouldn’t really be beneficial to the patient to do so anyway.

Defenses of such covered procedures are making other false claims in this debate. This is particularly true when it comes to children being subjected to these types of experimentation. The very liberal American Academy of Pediatrics is quoted as saying that, “for children who have yet to reach puberty, gender transition does not involve any medical interventions but instead focuses on social changes such as clothing and calling the child by another name.” But we already know this is a lie. There are already children out there being injected with unnatural compounds to retard the natural onset of puberty. If you don’t consider that a “medical intervention” you probably shouldn’t be practicing medicine. And frankly, when we find that happening we shouldn’t be asking whether insurance will cover it, but rather why that doctor isn’t in a jail cell yet.

These shouldn’t be complicated questions if we simply stick to basic and well established medical science. With the exception of a tiny fraction of the population who are born with particular genetic anomalies, there are two genders. They are determined pretty much at conception. It’s also true that the state of mental health care in our country is far from ideal and a lot more could be done to treat and hopefully cure people suffering from gender dysphoria. But under the SJW redefinition of gender, the medical profession is being dragged down some dark and very unscientific pathways.

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No taxpayer funded elective surgeries of any kind!

Originally Posted by Beezer

No taxpayer funded elective surgeries of any kind!

..... or insurance covered! The rest of us who actually pay insurance premiums should never be forced to subsidize elective surgery. Basically that is what we're doing when the insurance companies we have raise our premiums to cover such nonsense.

Originally Posted by MW

..... or insurance covered! The rest of us who actually pay insurance premiums should never be forced to subsidize elective surgery. Basically that is what we're doing when the insurance companies we have raise our premiums to cover such nonsense.

That is kind of the result of ObamaCare. Before ObamaCare there was "Group Insurance". In that insurance rates were based on the risk factor of that group. Smokers, for instance would pay a higher rate for insurance than non-smokers. Work type was also a factor. If we had such groups, LGBT could pay insurance based on their group.

Originally Posted by jtdc

That is kind of the result of ObamaCare. Before ObamaCare there was "Group Insurance". In that insurance rates were based on the risk factor of that group. Smokers, for instance would pay a higher rate for insurance than non-smokers. Work type was also a factor. If we had such groups, LGBT could pay insurance based on their group.

I hear what you're saying and see your point. However, the insurance cost for a transgender specifically seeking elective surgery to change his or her physical appearance would be cost prohibitive, don't you think? After all, it is elective surgery.

Now as for non-transgender homosexuals, I agree that the cost should fit their potentially risky behavior, just like smoking. However, For obvious reasons a homosexual male not in monogamous relationship would be a huge risk for an insurance company because of the risk of AIDS. Would such a person, if they actually had AIDS, even be insurable? I suspect such a person would have a very difficult, if not impossible, time getting health insurance even under the "group" scenario you're talking about. Hopefully, for that persons sake, he was insured prior to contracting the AIDS virus.

Honestly, I'm not a big knowledge on health care insurance and how it works because I've been fully covered by the federal government for the last 38 years. In other words, I've never had to fill out a health care application and have had no restrictions based on lifestyle or habits that I'm aware of. In other words, I could be a promiscuous homosexual needle sharing drug abuser in N.Y.C, smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish, collect rattlesnakes in West Texas and chase grizzly bears unarmed in Alaska without a cost increase to my health care plan.

Originally Posted by MW

I hear what you're saying and see your point. However, the insurance cost for a transgender specifically seeking elective surgery to change his or her physical appearance would be cost prohibitive, don't you think? After all, it is elective surgery.

And before ObamaCare you would have to buy a policy the covered that type of elective surgery.

Originally Posted by MW

Now as for non-transgender homosexuals, I agree that the cost should fit their potentially risky behavior, just like smoking. However, For obvious reasons a homosexual male not in monogamous relationship would be a huge risk for an insurance company because of the risk of AIDS. Would such a person, if they actually had AIDS, even be insurable? I suspect such a person would have a very difficult, if not impossible, time getting health insurance even under the "group" scenario you're talking about.

It is like "Assigned Risk" Auto Insurance. Very costly because of the high risk. That should be applied to coverage for HIV, unless it is the result of a medical failure such as a contaminated blood transfusion. But in that case, there is usually a remedy in that the medical provider is liable.

Originally Posted by MW

In other words, I could be a promiscuous homosexual needle sharing drug abuser in N.Y.C, smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish, collect rattlesnakes in West Texas and chase grizzly bears unarmed in Alaska without a cost increase to my health care plan.

And you should be uninsurable!