The University of Pennsylvania will begin covering transition surgery and related treatments beginning this fall for students who participate in the Penn Student Insurance Plan, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer. Related treatments include psychotherapy and hormone therapy.
Coverage will cap out at $50,000. The premium increase for students on the plan is expected to be very small, because very few students will likely take advantage of the coverage, a university spokesperson says. Approximately 8,000 to 9,000 of University of Pennsylvania students are on the student insurance plan, according to the report.
The change to the plan will bring the university in line with its non-discrimination policies, which include “gender identity.”
Transition has been determined by both medical professionals and the U.S. Tax Court to be a medically necessary procedure. Those non-trans people who would complain about paying a few cents extra per year for coverage that they themselves will never use should consider the fact that all those who pay for insurance pay for coverage that they will never use.
An insured person who pays a premium is helping to pay for the cancer treatment of others, even if that person never gets cancer. He or she is paying for treatment of others’ heart disease, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis, even if that person never develops those conditions. And others’ insurance premiums are helping to pay for his or her medical treatment.
Transition costs should be covered by every health insurance plan, just like other medically necessary procedures. The difference is that the ultimate costs will be far less, because a far greater number of people develop cancer and heart disease every year than the number who transition.
Comments
Looks like positive changes are happening.
Are you for real? Must be a dumb non-tax paying trust fund baby who's momma sent them to college to find himself
This is, of course, nonsense. You can't equate cancer, with an elective procedure, such as gender transition.
There remains disagreement in the psychological and medical fields as to whether gender dysphoria is real, or merely a preference.
Even in the TS community, there are some who adamantly declare that they do NOT have a "condition" or disfunction, while others claim that they have no choice but to transition.
The truth can be seen by examining our recent medical history. Before medical and pharmaceutical steps were available, society saw an occasional feminine man, but most of those men still led fairly normal lives.
Today, we are seeing what happens when medicine is practiced without regard to ethics or, indeed, any form of restraint.
Just because we can do some procedure, doesn't mean that we should.
Cosmetic procedures, including SRS, are not a disease, and therefore must not be added to the collective insurance burden of the rest of the citizens.
I agree, SRS is an elective procedure and should not be added to the already high cost of health insurance. Cancer treatment is not the same, shame on the biased, ulterior motived clown who wrote this article. Obviously has an agenda he/she/it is pushing.
University of Pennsylvania Denies Triadic Care for Staff and Faculty
http://tinyurl.com/4pdxgzc
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