The T.G. health care mess

IMAGINE CONSISTENTLY PAYING for health insurance – only to find that when you need care, your insurance carrier won't pay for it, leaving you with thousands of dollars of medical bills. Imagine being denied health coverage over and over by insurance carriers, even though you're healthy and active and haven't been sick a day in your life. Imagine the frustration with a medical community that doesn't even recognize your gender and sometimes treats you disrespectfully because it doesn't understand you.

For transgender people, these are the harsh realities faced every day in accessing the basic health care all of us need.

Transgender people, like everyone, share anxiety about national health care issues such as the increasing cost of prescription drugs and insurance. But they're also concerned about issues that are transgender-specific. An independent business owner, for instance, could consistently be denied a health policy simply because he has transitioned from female to male. A full-time employee could be forced to pay out of pocket for medical care because her employer's policy won't cover procedures related to her transition – regardless of whether they're necessary for her health. Transgender people also receive substandard care because of bias or lack of information on the part of health care professionals.

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