Health Insurance.

[flygirl82]

So I just started a new job and just got my insurance information.  Blue cross blue sheild of CA.  Everything transgender is excluded.  This makes me so angry and I feel under appreciated as an employee.  I work as a manager for a retail store and i have half a mind to write a letter to corporate asking to have transgender added.  I'm slightly worried about outing myself though.  But gender identity is protected by law in my state.

Has anyone else had any luck reaching out to their company in such a way?  And how did you go about it?

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[girl_ashley]

I work for a multi-national corporation that has gender identity and expression in our non-discrimination policy but yet have a statement in our health insurance that explicitly excludes anything related to transgender care.  I am a part of my company's LGBTA group and we have attempted numerous times to try and get trans stuff covered, but to no avail.  Oh well, looks like they are willing to take the hit on the HRC Corporate Equality Index Survey (we have gotten a 100% for the past several years).

[juliemac]

I figure we are not really people....

[Caith]

I figure we are not really people....

I respectfully disagree.  We are people due every bit of respect afforded to everyone else. 

My employer is an Israeli corporation that is self-insured and explicitly excludes transgender care in their insurance charter.  Fortunately, Cigna administers their claims process and hasn't denied anything I've claimed so far for therapy, psychiatry, and medications including estrogen.     When the annual employee satisfaction survey  came out today, one question asked what I would change, and I explicitly mentioned their transgender insurance exclusion.  They gladly mention transgender employees and candidates in their recruiting and job posting, but then deny insurance coverage to certain health care services for these same people. 

It's shameful and hurtful and just plain ignorant behavior, especially when other groups and corporations have already proven this coverage does not unreasonably raise their insurance expense.  What are they afraid of, that 50% of their world-wide employees will all immediately seek SRS? That's so unrealistic, but it's that kind of extreme thinking these people employ when they write these exclusions.