Another Self-inflicted Gunshot Wound
Updated: May 20, 2019
Another unnecessary self-inflicted gunshot wound for our President revealing his blatant ignorance and dishonesty. He’s used the additional costs of transgender healthcare to justify discrimination against transgender people in the military.
I was reminded that in April 2013, the state of California eliminated discrimination in healthcare for transgender people. This was met with outrage due to the anticipated costs to existing policy holders. However, the actual results showed otherwise.
The letter eliminating this discrimination in healthcare stated; “An increase in health insurance costs is not expected because of this Director’s Letter. Employers who have removed exclusions from their health plans typically find their costs so minimal as to warrant no additional cost to employees. If anything, the Director’s Letter will result in a cost savings. When transgender people aren’t able to access medically necessary health care, they must resort to short-term and socially costly alternative forms of care such as emergency rooms.”
This was not just a guess. It had been thoroughly researched, because prior to April 2013, many cities and some states had extended healthcare to transgender employees. Most had started with an additional premium charge to all plan members, which is traditional for insurance companies when no experience history can be documented. All found that the utilization rates and costs were so minimal, that these premium charges were eliminated.
Examples:
Portland, OR
The cost projection for Portland was $32,302 out of a total $41,615,000 health care budget – a 0.08 percent increase
Seattle, WA
Absorbed a premium increase of $200,000 per year of a total $105 million health care budget – just 0.19 percent of total health costs
San Francisco
From July 2001 through July 2006, the grand total of reported monies collected (for this purpose) was $5.6 million. The grand total of reported monies expended was $386,417. Since cost assumptions were nearly 15 times higher than actual claims, the city eventually eliminated the additional premium.
Berkeley, CA
Berkeley’s insurers charged a premium of 0.2 percent of the total annual budget for healthcare benefits. The total projected monthly increase was 0.25 percent as of March 2012.
New York State
A preliminary estimate by the New York State Department of Health in 2010 approximated that it would cost about $1.7 million to cover gender-confirming care through Medicaid. As the state Medicaid budget totaled $52 billion, this represented only 0.003 percent of the total budget. Based on evidence of low utilization and prevalence rates shown above, the Department determined that the impact on costs or increases in premiums due to the adoption of the proposed regulation would be immaterial.
California
Out of the 37.3 million California residents, transgender people make up between 0.0065 and 0.0173 percent of the total population in California, using the two highest estimates in order to be conservative. When the rate of uninsured Californians (19 percent) was factored in, only 0.0052 to 0.014 percent of the state population was to be impacted by the proposed regulation — or between 1,955 and 5,214 people. So, where do we get up to 6,000 transgender people in the military? I guess the military must be a congregating place for trans people.
Meanwhile, this morning, people like Rep. Vickie Hartzler (R-Missouri) cite ridiculous cost estimates from the Family Research Council. What a wonderful source for her to cite; an LGBT hate group as identified by the SPLC. Such a credible source, or rather incredible.
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