Medical Insurance for us? Not on your Life!
I sit here…waiting for the bigwigs at our insurance company to decide whether or not they will pay for my top surgery. If I was getting a different kind of surgery, and if I had not been on the radar already for being Trans-related, then I probably would have heard back already. But as it stands now, I am still waiting…is that a bad thing? What does that mean? 
Seriously though, it seems like for Trans-related issues, medical insurance does not want to touch SRS (sexual reassignment surgery) and would rather not pay for anything at all.
The Transgender Law Center website has an excellent article about this, including what insurance companies need to do to not discriminate against Transgender people. Here are some great excerpts about it:
“Many transgender people are denied health insurance coverage altogether solely because they are transgender. Most transgender people who apply for private health insurance on their own (not through a group plan with their work or school) have been denied coverage if the insurance company is aware of their transgender status. “
“Transgender people who have managed to acquire health insurance cannot get coverage for any services that are related to being transsexual or transgender. Almost every public and private health insurance program has exclusionary language in their contractual terms such as:
“The medical system only recognizes the existence of males and females. This creates problems for many transgender people whose bodies do not fit the standard male/female model. For instance, health insurance companies require that everyone identify themselves as either male or female.”
As you can see, the odds are stacked against us in the health care, and medical insurance arena. We have to fight our way through for every little right we get–as if being human isn’t enough to get the basic rights. Oh wait–it isn’t! The entire world is bent on rights for some, but not all, of humanity. Only the “normal”–rich, white, and straight, plus those whose identity fits their bodies they live–have rights. The rest of us either stand up and protest for every little right gets thrown our way, or sit down, shut up and take it. Is that any way to treat anyone??
November 30th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Agreed. The only health coverage I have ever had was state coverage, which I’ve now got again through being on Social Security.
It has always surprised me why no insurance company ever realized that we are an untapped market for every kind of medical coverage and that aside from a very specific pre-existing condition, are as likely to be healthy or unhealthy and pay premiums as anyone else. Surgery is finite treatment, and even if a company put a hefty copay on it or treated it the way they do preexisting conditions, that company would wind up snagging everyone who is trans — even long after surgery as you pointed out just now.
It may take anti-discrimination legislation to kick them into line. But there is one huge economic opportunity for whatever company crossed that line first, because you know that so many of us would pay higher premiums just to have actual insurance as needed for all the other things as well, or some way to pay for it over time.
I have also honestly wondered since I was 15 years old and first found out about TS (but could not convince my grandmother it was worth seeking treatment when she would pay for things like a podiatrist removing a hangnail), why there are no charities that help, the way there are for people with crippling diseases like polio, or people with lower incomes who need kidney transplants, or a host of other life-risking, life-destroying medical conditions.
I had a bitter jealousy of the polio poster children because everyone *cared* about them, of the kidney kids and the heart transplant man and the rest of the charity drives for someone’s expensive surgery or treatment… and the absence of one that I could write to and send my story and put my face on the cup. I’ve never heard any other TS person of either or any gender mention that, but I thought I’d share it — because I knew down in my crooked bones that I was not capable of earning that much money at a job or normal occupation. I was in denial about a lot of my physical disabilities at the time, but I knew my back was crooked and that there were a lot of things I could not do or keep up with… and had no hope of ever earning enough to pay it out of pocket.
I finally got surgery by way of getting a tumor the size of an eight week old kitten and top surgery as preventive for family history of cancer in those organs. I did get legal transition and am waiting on a birth certificate change but already have state ID, Social Security, bank account, all the things I lacked for most of my adult life. It’s very weird to be on the grid, to have a debit card in my name, to be able to shop online and off, to have a voter’s registration card that doesn’t put me through a week of recovery from enduring humiliation of being outed in order to vote against Bush.
I lived in gender from 1979 onward and got transition by way of tumors in 2006, one surgery at the start of the year and the other in the fall. It’s done wonders for me physically and for letting me have a life. But some part of me still regrets that there was no charity drive that could’ve answered my letter when I was fifteen, or even eighteen, and given me a fair start in life even with any of the other disabled people who weren’t trans.
Thank you for posting this update. I’m enjoying your blog immensely.
Robert A. Sloan, author and artist