Judge: Georgia county can't deny gender surgery to deputy

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JEFF AMY

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge has found that a Georgia sheriff’s office was illegally discriminating when it denied gender reassignment surgery to a deputy.

U.S. District Judge Marc Treadwell ruled June 2 that Houston County cannot exclude surgery for the transgender woman from its health insurance plan, citing a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision finding that a Michigan funeral home couldn’t fire an employee for being transgender.

The case involves Sgt. Anna Lange, an investigator in the middle Georgia county who began her transition in 2017 after being diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

“I can confidently move forward with my life knowing that gender affirming care is protected under federal law,” Lange said in a statement released by the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, which represented her. “This decision is not only a personal victory, but a tremendous step forward for all transgender Southerners who are seeking insurance coverage for medically necessary care.”


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-politics-health-georgia-business-1bb2ff530c1ceeebe9bcbf127592e0f1

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Sheriff in place for FIFTY YEARS and he don't believe in that stuff. So instead of paying

$25K in insurance for the surgery, they have spent 700K fighting.
Ignorant goddamn assholes.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. but they were offended and so was God! (snark)

[CurtEastPoint]

3. bloviating fuck

[cstanleytech]

5. They probably spent the 700k because by continuing the fight it got them free PR

in varies elections and they can then also use the fact that they are "fighting" it because they are the morale ones.
In other words they used it like chum to attract voters.

[NullTuples]

7. Why, that's using taxpayer money to campaign...

[cstanleytech]

4. Would not most insurance companies be assholes and deny it claiming its an elective surgery?

[NullTuples]

8. They used to do so decades ago based on the ADA

Last edited Sun Jun 12, 2022, 10:55 AM - Edit history (1)

Sen Jesse Helms at the last moment had a provision inserted into the ADA that excluded trans people. That exclusion became a boilerplate clause in most health insurance policies.

But eventually most either changed or were pressured to change. The big turning point was when self-insured City of San Francisco added trans health care coverage. They ended up adding about $1.70 initially to each policy's yearly premiums based on actuarial calculations. Then it was dropped to $0.50/policy.

"From July 2001 to July 2004, the HSS collected approximately $4.3 million from its members specifically to cover the transgender benefit, while paying out approximately $156,000 on seven claims for surgery"

In other words the long used excuse of disproportional cost was false.

https://transhealthproject.org/documents/19/SF_transgender_health_benefit.pdf

After that, insurance companies also compared the cost of not covering trans surgeries to covering them and found it was far cheaper and thus more more profitable to cover them.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. From the court filings

Link to tweet

[Oneironaut]

9. "My evidence is Gawd! Enough said!"

Sadly, this defense would probably work on occasion.

Guess what? God told me that Trump belongs in prison! Who are you to deny my sincerely held religious beliefs!?

[riversedge]

10. k and R and thanks