How is cutting off a perfectly fine organ considered “health care?”

Via Chicago Tribune:

University of Illinois trustees today approved a student health insurance plan for the Urbana-Champaign campus that will for the first time cover gender reassignment surgery, a benefit they approved for the Chicago campus last year.

The trustees’ 8-2 decision came after about 20 minutes of discussion and followed public comments by two students and an employee who counsels the university’s transgender students.

Trustee Dr. Timothy Koritz and student trustee Michael Cunningham voted against it.

The insurance cost for students will increase about 15 percent this fall, to $582 a year for undergraduates and $752 for graduate students. Between $4 and $6 of the increase is attributed to adding gender reassignment surgery to the insurance plan. The procedure, commonly referred to as a “sex change,” transforms a person’s physical appearance and sexual characteristics to that of the other sex.

The insurance will cover counseling, hormone therapy and surgery related to gender reassignment.

While students are automatically assessed the student health insurance fee, they can opt out if they show evidence of other insurance coverage — through a parent or job, for example. About 28,000 of the campus’ 44,500 students are participating in the health insurance plan this year.