Transgender want YOU to pay for their procedures

Post Reply New Topic

Hey, God! Pardon me, but you seem to have a little arthropod on your chin? Feel it...right there, kinda sticking out the corner of your mouth? Like a little crab leg, maybe...?

You don't say

Let's play a game, people, shall we?

My autistic son lives in a former Socialist European country, where he's getting a global treatment: he goes to a special needs school with specially trained teachers, very small classes, and a special curriculum, and he gets automatic appointments with whatever medical or paramedical specialists he might need to consult. This is all paid by the government, who does this for every kid who has been diagnosed as having special needs, of whatever type.

Me, as I said, I'm transgender. FtM. This means that I take a 10€ shot of testosterone every three weeks, and that I had a double mastectomy which cost me a bit under 2,000€. Maybe I'll have a hysterectomy someday, I'm not sure, so let's add another 2,000€ even though my trans buddy said he paid less for it than for the double mastectomy. And I don't plan on getting a phalloplasty, but let's say I do anyway, because that's the Big One, the expensive one. My trans buddy said it would cost him around 40,000€ if he did it.

Now tell me: between my son and myself, which of us do you think has the more expensive treatment?

That's right: even if I were to have a phalloplasty, I would still not end up paying anywhere as much as my son's country's government will have paid for his education and therapy by the time he's done with school.

Cherry on the cake: transitioning has considerably reduced my anxiety and depression, so I'm consuming less meds, thus costing less to the insurance system in that matter.

Conclusion: a lot of people in this thread are massive hypocrites on top of being extremely ignorant. When you have a condition which requires costly medical therapy, you don't get to say that another condition which is LESS expensive to treat than yours shouldn't be covered.

Also, regarding the concept of "Frankenstein surgeries": get up to date, people! A well-done vaginoplasty gives excellent results, to the point that some trans women get assaulted and sometimes KILLED when a guy they had vaginal sex with, and who didn't notice anything wrong at the time, learns later on that she "used to be a man". Yes, it happens, far more often than you would believe. These guys didn't notice anything wrong with the reconstructed vagina - or with the rest of its owner, for that matter. Admittedly, genital surgeries for trans men are not that advanced yet, but there are many trans men who had small breasts and were able to benefit from a double mastectomy technique which left them with virtually invisible scars unless you know exactly what to look for. And even my own very visible scars are invisible under my clothes...

So really, many of you need to educate themselves and keep their mouths shut until they know better - especially if they expect NT people to educate themselves about autism.

Exactly.
Its like the school playground, my condition is worse than yours. It doesn't work like that

Also, chemo`& radiation & operations for a person with lung cancer who refused to quit smoking are vastly more expensive and extensive and resource consuming.

TG operations, are almost always life changing in a positive way and come from a very thoughtful positive `can do` approach to live a better life. ie rather than a self destructive one, like
`I will keep smoking/eating too much and will expect the health services to make me better when I have done nothing to change myself`

These are expensive costs.

The article states:

"In Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery posts cost estimates for different procedures. Its price list mentions estimates of $140,450 to transition from male to female, and $124,400 to transition from female to male".

I think the better argument is how rare they would be performed.

This Times newspaper quote puts it into perspective a little!

"Health economists at Oxford University estimate that the annual cost of lung cancer to the UK economy is around £2.4 billion"

And this...

One study[6] on the economic burden of lung cancer estimates that the overall costs, from diagnosis to a maximum of two years thereafter, to be about $46,000. The study found that the main cost drivers were hospitalization (49% of costs) and outpatient office visits (35.2% of costs), with a monthly initial treatment phase cost of $11,500 per patient.

and

210,828 people in the United States were diagnosed with lung cancer, including 111,395 men and 99,433 women.*†
157,423 people in the United States died from lung cancer, including 86,689 men and 70,734 women.

NB. I AM NOT SAYING THAT ALL THESE PATIENTS GOT LUNG CANCER FROM SMOKING.
But a considerable number must have and the cost must run into billions if UK figures are anything to go by.

In fact Wiki says this:

90 percent
It has been estimated that active smoking is responsible for close to 90 percent of lung cancer cases; radon causes 10 percent, occupational exposures to carcinogens account for approximately 9 to 15 percent and outdoor air pollution 1 to 2 percent.

My point is that: smoking IS a lifestyle choice

Don't ask me for an actual source, but from what I read in the papers these days obesity is a major cause of disease and expense to the NHS. Why come down on smokers? I don't smoke and am underweight.

You missed the point completely. My point was that no matter how much transitioning might cost, the expense is irrelevant in the face of the cost of things like therapy and support for autistic kids and adults being much higher.



What the heck do they need that much money for?? I guess it's because every medical procedure is somehow more expensive in America?



Very, very rarely. There are very few of us trans people, and even fewer who want the whole physical transition shebang. For example, as I said, I don't want a phalloplasty or anything of the sort, so all in all, over my entire lifetime, my transition will have cost no more than a small fraction of the prices you quoted. I wouldn't be surprised if my depression/anxiety/hypothyroidism/diabetes combo ends up costing more, and nobody would suggest that hypothyroidism or depression not be covered by medical insurances, right?

Correct and I did come down on obesity in an earlier post.

I was just supporting the point about the casual hypocrisy of some folks thinking prioritising health spending.

Those prices of $120k to $140k are inflated unless they include *every* related cost during the person's life, many of which are not actually covered by insurance and so are a bit misleading for this discussion. It's also strikingly odd that it lists surgery costs for trans men as being *lower* considering the cost of some phalloplasties (which many trans men skip b/c they aren't viewed as good enough yet).

For instance, basic surgery costs using the same source:
"Price examples include The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery, where basic male-to-female surgery that includes testicle removal, genital surgery and breast augmentation would cost a little over $30,000 while for basic female-to-male surgery that includes mastectomy, areolar reduction and genital surgery, would cost between $12,000 and $25,000 depending on the type of genital surgery chosen."

Keep in mind however, that while many insurance companies will pay for mastectomies, in the USA exceedingly few will cover breast augmentation, so even the figures listed above are inflated when discussing spreading the cost over all policy holders vs out of pocket / non-covered costs. However, B.A. is included in the UK health care system's coverage (as well as most other countries with nationalized health care that cover trans health).

Insofar as how often the surgeries are performed, most estimates range around 1,000 per year in the USA out of 319 million people. In Great Britain the number is about 180/yr out of 64 million people, but there is an acknowledged massive backlog. Thailand estimates are about double that of GB, but include many medical tourists. Interestingly, mtf surgery in Thailand only runs about $8000 USD, giving some idea of the actual costs involved. Foreigners who have their surgery in Thailand however will be paying out of pocket, not through insurance.