Birth control is prescribed by a doctor for a wide variety of things, including chronic health conditions. If you think insurance shouldn’t cover birth control because it’s consistent, do diabetics also not deserve to have insulin covered, or high blood pressure people their statins?
I'm not sure whether you include trans healthcare among "shouldn't be covered", so here's my 2 cents:
- Most of Europe prescribes hormones upon a medical indication. This leads to bad gatekeeping; I've been told to see 3 different professionals before starting hormones.
- Anecdotally, I'm on grey market hormones while waiting, without any bloodwork - before starting those hormones, I've had suicidal ideations on a daily basis.
- This seems to be backed by data as well: Ideation rates are reported to be 37-83% and attempt rates are reported to be 9.8-44%. [0]
Given the frequent outcomes of depression and suicide, I think it's fair to say that trans healthcare is not optional and should be fully covered.
I'm not arguing about politics, I'm putting in question the whole idea of making voluntary (not sure if that's the correct term - definitely not elective as I was corrected above) medical procedures available through insurance. Insurance is meant for unpredictable and unforeseen exceptional events. Wanting to have beauty surgery, or contraception, or lasik surgery, etc. isn't such. You could still argue that these should be covered by insurance, but that's simply economically inefficient - you're essentially paying for a subscription service, with the middle man taking a cut - why not just buy it yourself?
I see the confusion. American health insurance doesn’t really fit the term insurance as you define it above. I agree, insurance should be for catastrophic events. But in the US, a health plan is expected to cover all your medical expenses, minus co-pays or deductibles. Perhaps there should be a different term for it.
Obviously it is. But for people defending all kinds of status quo, it's a political act just trying to change it. Trying to keep it as it is, it's seen as "normal" or apolitical.
