If Tancredo runs, and by some miracle actually gets nominated, I will vote for him. But not Rudy or McCain...Frist I am iffy on.
In regarding to the recent article on Washington state's recent "resurrection" of Medicaid's policy on paying for sex-change surgeries. I am not going to reveal my identity as I am what we call in the transgender community "deep stealth", in other words after I had my sex-change operation I do not reveal my past to anyone in my "current" life.
There are a few things I would like to clarify. I am one of the "patients" that the state covered for the procedure as well as a few other related surgeries not genital-related (but not usually covered by Medicaid), and it wasn't a handful of people who got the surgery paid for, to be exact it was three. I got my surgery approved in March of 2000, and through extreme difficulty finding a surgeon who would accept this kind of insurance I had my sex-reassignment surgery September 2002...so I had to wait 2 1/2 agonizing years after being approved due to their lack of interest in finishing the "deal" with the surgeon. I will tell you first-hand the employees of Medicaid are extreme right-wing individuals and very transphobic. They did nothing to "expedite" the process because they regard transgender people as not a priority, but as second-class citizens.
You need to realize there are only a very small handful of surgeons who do this procedure in the United States, and as of NOW there are NO surgeons accepting Medicaid coverage, as their reimbursement is 45% of the total fees. Therefore surgeons avoid it like the plague. The sad truth is even when Medicaid DOES approve the surgery when they rarely did, you can't find a surgeon to do it anymore. So it makes no difference. I had to submit countless documents to prove my "condition", and it was no walk in the park. I'm disgusted that people would even question the necessity of this surgery without knowing the facts first. Medicaid states "they insist patients have other options". Well that is suicide. This is the very sick reality.
In regarding to the recent article on Washington state's recent "resurrection" of Medicaid's policy on paying for sex-change surgeries. I am not going to reveal my identity as I am what we call in the transgender community "deep stealth", in other words after I had my sex-change operation I do not reveal my past to anyone in my "current" life.
There are a few things I would like to clarify. I am one of the "patients" that the state covered for the procedure as well as a few other related surgeries not genital-related (but not usually covered by Medicaid), and it wasn't a handful of people who got the surgery paid for, to be exact it was three. I got my surgery approved in March of 2000, and through extreme difficulty finding a surgeon who would accept this kind of insurance I had my sex-reassignment surgery September 2002...so I had to wait 2 1/2 agonizing years after being approved due to their lack of interest in finishing the "deal" with the surgeon. I will tell you first-hand the employees of Medicaid are extreme right-wing individuals and very transphobic. They did nothing to "expedite" the process because they regard transgender people as not a priority, but as second-class citizens.
You need to realize there are only a very small handful of surgeons who do this procedure in the United States, and as of NOW there are NO surgeons accepting Medicaid coverage, as their reimbursement is 45% of the total fees. Therefore surgeons avoid it like the plague. The sad truth is even when Medicaid DOES approve the surgery when they rarely did, you can't find a surgeon to do it anymore. So it makes no difference. I had to submit countless documents to prove my "condition", and it was no walk in the park. I'm disgusted that people would even question the necessity of this surgery without knowing the facts first. Medicaid states "they insist patients have other options". Well that is suicide. This is the very sick reality.