Obamacare may force insurers to cover ‘genital reconstruction’

LifeSiteNews ^ | 3/23/16 | Father Mark Hodges

[wagglebee]

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 23, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – The Obama Health and Human Services Department is finalizing a regulation requiring insurers under Obamacare to pay for genital reconstruction surgery.

A sweeping "Nondiscrimination Mandate" applies federal civil rights laws to the Affordable Care Act, calling for medical plans that receive federal funds to cover gender reassignment surgeries, under the guise of helping gender-confused individuals.

It is unclear whether the Obama nondiscrimination mandate will also force private insurers, such as companies that run their own employee health plans, to cover surgery attempting to change one's gender. 

Under federal law (referred to as ERISA), large companies can design their own health plans, and most of them hire an insurance company to handle claims. But the Obama HHS may now decree that insurance companies must apply its nondiscrimination mandate to "for all of its health plans, as well as when it acts as a third party administrator for an employer-sponsored group health plan."

CBS News reports that some corporations object to this "overreach by the Obama administration." Gretchen Young, health policy vice president for the ERISA Industry Committee, explained, "People are getting concerned there will be a whole body of things that will come up in the future."

An America's Health Insurance Plans spokeswoman told CBS News that the added costs might deter a large corporation from hiring a third-party insurance company, which "creates an uneven playing field" for insurers.

David H. Pickup, a licensed marriage and family therapist and a featured speaker at Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays' (PFOX) events, told LifeSiteNews, "Obamacare funding for transgender operations is based on a fundamental falsehood that transgender persons are born dichotomized, that a man is born as a biological male but is in fact a woman internally."

He explained that this popular presumption is false. "The entire body of research for the past 100 years has never revealed any transgender gene, epigenetic, or hormonal study that has proved this transgender philosophy," he said. "However, there is a huge amount of research, which finds that this psychological condition occurs because of major unresolved gender confusion issues in very early childhood, and that most children work out of their gender issues by the time they become adults."

"Obamacare has become a major player in furthering the emotional dysfunctional issues of transgender persons," Pickup charged. "Instead, Obamacare should be paying for expert psychotherapy for these individuals who certainly can, with hard work, experience growth and resolution of these issues."

"Obamacare is about to waste millions of Americans' money to fund something that is leading to harm and dysfunction, not freedom," the therapist said. "I have transgender clients ... and it's always the same story. They deserve compassion very much, but they deserve the truth as well."

PFOX is one of the nation's leading "reparative therapy" advocacy organizations, offering support to families and friends of individuals with unwanted same-sex attractions and gender confusion.

Pickup, himself an ex-gay, concluded, "Even though the media will tell you the main point is a 'civil rights' issue, it is actually a form of mass denial and dysfunction, for which Americans are paying millions of dollars."

In 2014, the governmental Medicare program began using tax dollars to pay for genital reconstruction surgery.

"The notion that 'transgender' surgery is medically necessary and should be covered by insurance is a complete farce," Sean Ryan, communications director for Mass Resistance, told LifeSiteNews. "At best, it is purely cosmetic surgery – no man can ever 'become' a woman and vice versa."

"At worst, these procedures aid and abet a patient's troubling delusion, with often disastrous results including regret and suicide," Ryan cautioned.

Jocelyn Samuels, head of the HHS civil rights office, said, "This is another example of this administration's commitment to giving every American access to the health care they deserve."

Ryan concluded, "This interpretation of Obamacare demonstrates once again that the people and entities driving these policy changes are so out of touch with reality, and so beholden to ideology, that they would willingly risk people's lives just to be politically correct."

"Obamacare is forcing Americans and American insurance companies to accept a political agenda," Denise Shick, executive director of Help 4 Families Ministry, told LifeSiteNews. "This would only advance a life-threatening treatment that does not treat the person's delusion of reality. Children are being encouraged to live out their fantasies, that do not match not biological facts, while sterilizing them in the process."

"I have to wonder if anyone cares at all for the children who will become depressed, and possibly suicidal years later, when reality hits them," the transgender ministry founder added.

"This movement destroys families and family relationships, as many are asked to participate in the delusion of their loved one," Ms. Shick concluded. "Where is the good in this?"

"The average American does not want to use his or her hard-earned taxpayer dollars to pay for grotesque, body-disfiguring 'sex reassignment surgeries,'" Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, told LifeSiteNews. "The pro-LGBT Left knows that, so they advance their agenda incrementally – hiding their radical public policy aims until it is too late."

"The tragic reality is that government subsidizing these horrific operations actually incentivizes men and women to go through them," LaBarbera explained. "That is why Congress and the American people must act now to stop this from happening."

"And ultimately, Obamacare must be repealed," LaBarbera concluded, "because nonsense like this will only increase if it is kept alive."

[oldasrocks]

I think I’m an elephant and need an extension.

[combat_boots]

Wags, this is one horror story . I don't recommend that people read it. It haunts you. I post it here for the record.

[haroldeveryman]

Think of the possibilities. After the next election, Obama could become Hillary’s first Lady!