Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: We Got You Covered… Not!

Sunday, October 20, 2013

We Got You Covered… Not!

The problem lies in the interpretation of a CDC policy and the actual law that was passed; a clinic in Colorado is not giving free mammograms to low income trans-women saying the CDC policy states the funding is for genetic women.

Transgender woman sues after being denied free breast cancer screening
9News
By Will Ripley
Oct 14, 2013

DENVER - The legal definition of "female" is at the center of a new lawsuit.

Jennifer Blair, a transsexual woman, is suing for the right to get free breast cancer screenings.

Blair had surgery to change her gender more than a decade ago.

Women's Wellness Connection, a state-run healthcare program, recently turned her away because she is "not genetically female."
[…]
After noticing unusual breast growth, Blair went to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains on the 6300 block of E. Exposition in Denver for a mammogram, paid for by Women's Wellness Connection.
[…]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pays for the program, and says it only covers clients who are "genetically female."

The law (Public Law 106-354) in question states.

An Act
To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to provide medical assistance for certain women screened and found to have breast or cervical cancer under a federally funded screening program, to amend the Public Health Service Act and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to surveillance and information concerning the relationship between cervical cancer and the human papillomavirus (HPV), and for other purposes.

Do you see anything that says genetic women? If you read the CDC website about program eligibility there is nothing there that says only genetic women. Then how did Planned Parenthood interpret the law to say genetic women?

Well it turns out that a newsletter from the CDC said,

...specifically states coverage for women. Therefore CDC's position has been to only cover clients who are genetically female. So we will cover transgender female to male patients... But we do not cover transgender male to female patients.

So it only an interpretation by the CDC and is not stated anywhere in the law.

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Sunday, October 20, 2013

We Got You Covered… Not!

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