Gender reassignment now covered by insurance

A Campus Memo sent out on Tuesday, Oct. 28 announced that Grinnell has conditionally included coverage for gender reassignment surgery in the Grinnell College Student Accident and Sickness Insurance plan for the 2014-2015 school year.

After a controversial period last year after the passage of the Affordable Care Act when it was not known whether gender reassignment surgery, hormone replacement therapy or other treatments associated with the transition process would be included, the decision was made to incorporate these benefits into the student health care plan.

Director of Compensation and Assistant Treasurer Jim Mulholland wrote in an email to The S&B that the decision was made as part of the Colleges commitment to social justice and the plans overall affordability.

The decision to include gender reassignment surgery in the student health plan was decided just prior to renewing our policy with Student Assurance Services in May, he wrote. These services were included in the plan based on Grinnells history of supporting social justice.

Mulholland stated that hormone replacement therapy will also be included in the plan, as it is a requirement of the process of changing ones gender. He also noted that the cost of the plan was very reasonable for the range of benefits that will be included.

The additional cost for transgender coverage is less than $40 per student participant for the year, Mulholland wrote. The plan provides extremely good coverage for the premium and would be hard to replace with a comparable plan in the HealthcareMarketplace. It has an unlimited general benefit maximum and a $2,000 out-of-pocket maximum (participant costs) for medical services with low prescription copays and coinsurance for in-network service providers.

Covered students interested in pursuing gender reassignment surgery must satisfy all of the eligibility criteria and should have a good understanding of the maximum dollar amounts for this benefit. According to a document linked in the memo, those insured under this plan must submit information regarding the treatment they have received or are currently receiving to the Plan Administrator for review and authorization of services under this benefit as developed across industry standards, but may be subject to change.

Further, the document specified that insured persons must be at least 18 years of age or older and pass the diagnosis of true transsexualism, in addition to having completed a recognized program of gender identity treatment. According to the plan, to qualify for the prescription of true transsexualism, the insured must have the desire to make his or her body as congruent as possible with the preferred sex through surgery and hormone treatment and have a stable transsexual orientation evidenced by a desire to be rid of ones genitals and to live in society as a member of the other sex for at least 2 years, that is, not limited to periods of stress. There are significantly more criteria that must be met in addition to those listed above, which the document noted are based on industry standards developed from peer-reviewed treatment protocols and may be subject to change.

Amanda Magyar 17, a co-leader of Grinnells Trans Action Group (TAG), explained in an email to The S&B that TAG members were initially very excited when they discovered that the College had decided to include gender reassignment surgery, which was achieved after a large amount of time spent tabling and gathering signatures in the JRC.

[When] we first found out that the College had agreed to find a more trans-inclusive insurance provider, everyone was pretty excited. A few of us put pretty significant effort into postering and gathering signatures to convince them to do sowe got over 800 signatures, which was incredible, Magyar wrote. We had someone meet with President [Raynard] Kington personally after wed gotten the signatures and he was very receptive to the idea.

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Gender reassignment now covered by insurance