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Ohio library rejects adding transgender coverage to health insurance

calamity

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Finally some sanity.

By Fox 19 Cincinnati Published June 15, 2016


Rachel Dovel, a transgender woman and 10-year Public Library of Cincinnati employee, was hoping gender reassignment surgery would be covered in her health insurance.

"I knew that I wasn't a boy but it didn't click. It didn't mesh until 2014,” Dovel told FOX19 NOW.

Dovel wants gender confirmation surgery, but the insurance policy offered to employees at the library doesn’t cover it, and it won’t cover it anytime soon.

A unanimous vote by the library’s board of trustees reinforced its previous decision to not cover transgender healthcare....
Ohio library rejects adding transgender coverage to health insurance | Fox News

Cincinnati, one of the few sane large metropolitan areas left in the country.
 
This is a highly elective procedure so, even as an LGBT person who also knows transgender individuals, I understand the library's decision so long as it is consistent.
 
This is a highly elective procedure so, even as an LGBT person who also knows transgender individuals, I understand the library's decision so long as it is consistent.

It's also highly expensive, requires lifelong hormone treatments, additional procedures, and is wrought with much risk for numerous complications. My personal feelings on SRS notwithstanding, it's simply not something others (insurance pool, tax payers, etc) should pay for.
 
I guess the first big question is whether there is any policy options for any carrier cover gender change treatment. Not an aspect of researching health insurance I ever researched, but insurance carriers elect to cover or not cover all sorts of treatments, or even limit ones that are covered.
 
I guess the first big question is whether there is any policy options for any carrier cover gender change treatment. Not an aspect of researching health insurance I ever researched, but insurance carriers elect to cover or not cover all sorts of treatments, or even limit ones that are covered.

I'm no expert, but I figure it's a rider the C Library chose not to pick up.
 
This is why employers should not be responsible for their employees' health coverage; they should not have the authority to decide what their employees are allowed to access.
 
Finally some sanity.



Cincinnati, one of the few sane large metropolitan areas left in the country.

Plenty of Insurance covers this procedure. I think it's a shame the Library feels this way, but it's their decision.
 
This is why employers should not be responsible for their employees' health coverage; they should not have the authority to decide what their employees are allowed to access.

Who do you feel should decide what people are allowed to access?
 
This is why employers should not be responsible for their employees' health coverage; they should not have the authority to decide what their employees are allowed to access.

They should when it comes to elective riders. Then it should be the employees' decision to either supplement with private insurance or opt out of the employer plan and find another one on the market.
 
Finally some sanity.



Cincinnati, one of the few sane large metropolitan areas left in the country.

My understanding is that sex reassignment surgery is exceedingly rare and not the primary mechanism whereby transgender people express themselves. I could see it being very reasonable not to cover this though I obviously don't know all the details.
 
Since it is unfortunately necessary to have someone decide what is available to people, I would nominate doctors.

Interesting choice. Since nearly all of these procedures require a physician anyway, they are the first level of review for whether a procedure is done or not. However, do not they have some level of vested interest in their decision and no involvement with who is involved in the payment for those services?
 
My understanding is that sex reassignment surgery is exceedingly rare and not the primary mechanism whereby transgender people express themselves. I could see it being very reasonable not to cover this though I obviously don't know all the details.

I am of the opinion that it may be best to keep it that way.
 
Interesting choice. Since nearly all of these procedures require a physician anyway, they are the first level of review for whether a procedure is done or not. However, do not they have some level of vested interest in their decision and no involvement with who is involved in the payment for those services?

Ideally, the taxpayers should pay for healthcare, and the agency that pays for something is usually entitled to dictate terms. But I do not support giving elected officials with no medical training the authority to make healthcare decisions for citizens; those decisions should be left to non-partisan medical experts.
 
Plenty of Insurance covers this procedure. I think it's a shame the Library feels this way, but it's their decision.

yep. And yep.
 
Ideally, the taxpayers should pay for healthcare, and the agency that pays for something is usually entitled to dictate terms. But I do not support giving elected officials with no medical training the authority to make healthcare decisions for citizens; those decisions should be left to non-partisan medical experts.

So are you saying that you want everyone to pay for their own healthcare, or that you want to do away with insurance and perhaps just send the bill to the government? The challenge here is that physicians in this case apparently have already made their decision, the open question is who is going to pay for the procedure and ongoing care associated with the procedure.
 
So are you saying that you want everyone to pay for their own healthcare, or that you want to do away with insurance and perhaps just send the bill to the government?

The latter. Our healthcare system doesn't work, and Obamacare just made it worse.
 
The latter. Our healthcare system doesn't work, and Obamacare just made it worse.

I guess next questions are to which government? State, Federal or Local? Will they actually pay the bill received or will they decide to pay something less? Who decides what a fair price is for the services and products rendered on behalf of the patient?
 
I guess next questions are to which government? State, Federal or Local? Will they actually pay the bill received or will they decide to pay something less? Who decides what a fair price is for the services and products rendered on behalf of the patient?

These are subjects best left to another thread.
 
Finally some sanity.

Cincinnati, one of the few sane large metropolitan areas left in the country.

I hate to nit pick, but the language in this article is so utterly screwed up.

"Gender" is psychological, "sexual" is physical.

There is no "gender reassignment surgery" unless you are doing brain surgery, there is "sex change surgery" and those seeking such surgery are called "Pro-Op Transsexuals" and those who have the surgery are "transsexuals".
 
This is why employers should not be responsible for their employees' health coverage; they should not have the authority to decide what their employees are allowed to access.

At the end of the day, when it comes to insurance, someone has to make the decision of what they buying. If it is private insurance or public, someone will decide what that policy covers and what it doesn't.
 
This is why employers should not be responsible for their employees' health coverage; they should not have the authority to decide what their employees are allowed to access.

Any individual can go out and buy supplemental coverage. Or a plan for themselves. No one is forced to go with their companies plan.
 
I think insurance is expensive enough just taking care of people with actual illnesses.
While a person who can not come to terms with the physical body they were born with,
may be a mental illness, it is not a physical illness!
A person choosing to medically alter their physical body,
that does not have a physical illness, is the vary definition of elective surgery.
 
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