I guess I should say - what does Obamacare mean for SRS coverage?
I keep trying to find information, but there is none. Every time I google "Obamacare SRS," I get a bunch of blogs from crazy conservatives worried about "free sex changes." I can't find anything that's really...recent. It's all from a year ago or longer, so who knows if it's still relevant.
So, what do we know? All I've heard is:
- They can't discriminate against trans people. (Or anyone else with a "pre-existing condition")
- They will cover things like pap smears for trans men and prostate exams for trans women.
And I keep hearing the word "discrimination" over and over again. How insurance can't discriminate or deny coverage for trans people. Well, does this include SRS or not? Because specifically denying coverage for transgender-specific medical procedures sure as hell sounds like discrimination to me.
By "not discriminate" they mean they must give you an insurance policy. Nothing more.
Whether or not it covers what you need is based on the policy you purchase.
Also, it's called the "Affordable Care Act," not Obamacare.
More details: https://www.healthcare.gov/
As with PP I think what they mean of not being able to discriminate against trans people is they can't use being trans (or anything else) as a pre-existing condition (under the old system some trans people couldn't get insurance even post-transition because they saw that as a pre-existing condition). It does not mean that insurance has to cover the transition-related expenses (e.g. SRS, FFS for MTFs, breast removal for FTMs) specifically.
I wrote a lot on this recent thread here: https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,148778.0.html
Some other people wrote who were working on state exchanges and that sort of thing. So they probably know more than I do. Basically if you want to find out what might happen with the ACA (or I've seen AFCA) watch what happens to Medicare. They are taking the whole surgery thing under advisement (this was from April). Medicare tends to cover lab testing, doctor visits, and therapy (well don't know about that one actually but think that's probably an easy one as there are different ways to code this).
--Jay