Celebrate diiiiversity!
Via WaPo:
The State Department, which has been on the leading edge of policies affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender federal employees, is eliminating the “transgender exclusion” from the agency’s largest health insurance program.
Insurance policies under the Federal Employees Health Benefits program generally exclude services “related to sex reassignment.”
In practice, this transgender exclusion “denies coverage to transgender people for the same treatments available to non-transgender policy holders, without regard to medical necessity,” the State Department said in a statement. “Insurance companies often view this exclusion in the broadest possible terms, excluding care that clearly has no relationship to gender status such as cancer treatment and routine preventive care.”
But starting in January, the exclusions will no longer be part of the department’s largest health insurance plan, the one provided by the American Foreign Service Protective Association.
This will make a big difference for the family of Kimi Kanda in Santa Clara, Calif.
“Because the exclusion in federal health-care coverage has been lifted, our daughter will have access to health care she needs like any other child of a federal employee,” Kanda said. “If the exclusion remained, we would pay out of pocket for her medical care even though we already pay for her to be included on my husband’s federal insurance.”