Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Have You Seen The News About Medicare?

Sunday, June 01, 2014

Have You Seen The News About Medicare?

If you have seen the news that Medicare removed ban on medically necessary healthcare for us then you also saw the headlines…
     ABC News: Medicare Ban on Sex Reassignment Surgery Lifted
     Fox: Ruling: Medicare Can Pay for Transgender Recipient Sex-Change...
     Time: Medicare coverage ban on sex-change surgery lifted
     Huffington Post: Medicare Can Pay For Transgender Recipients' Gender Confirmation Surgeries
     New York Times: Medicare to Now Cover Sex-Change Surgery

Even the LGBT news sources reported…
     Advocate: HHS Lifts Medicare Ban on Gender-Confirming Surgeries
     Washington Blade: Medicare to lift ban on gender reassignment surgery

People this is a lot more than just surgery! At least the Huffington Post, the Advocate, and the Washington Blade got the name right, but reading the articles you would think that this is just about GCS. They all used the article from AP,

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Transgender people receiving Medicare may no longer be automatically denied coverage for sex reassignment surgeries, a U.S. Department of Health and Services review board ruled Friday in a groundbreaking decision that recognizes the procedures as a medically necessary and effective treatment for individuals who do not identify with their biological sex.

The only one to get it right was MetroWeekly, their headline read, “Medicare ban on transition-related medical care overturned” and their opening paragraph was,

A longstanding ban that prohibited Medicare from covering transition-related medical procedures for transgender Americans was struck down Friday by an independent panel within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Nowhere is it does it mention “sexual reassignment surgery” and the ruling covers some many other procedures that were being denied to trans-people. Trans-men were being denied treatment for ovarian cancer and I was denied last week coverage for my prostrate exam. In big black letters it said “PSA – DENIED billed in error” and I'm going to have to call them to fight to get them to pay for the test.

And you don’t even want to read the comments for the articles, the article brought out all the bigots. Many of the milder comments were about it being cosmetic and who says it is “medical necessary,” well these organizations says it is medical necessary, American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

There is a direct relationship to suicides and the “quality of life” between getting proper healthcare and not.

No comments:

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, June 01, 2014

Have You Seen The News About Medicare?

No comments:

Post a Comment