Blinded by ideology: SRS and Medicare
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09 Aug 2014, 4:40 pm
Read any conservative news story on Medicare now considering sex reassignment surgery (SRS) for its beneficiaries on a case-by-case basis, and you'll receive talk of sordid tales of Obama and the Democrats implementing the "Homosexual Agenda."
Read any radical feminist website, and you'll read of sordid backroom deals to oppress women by covering SRS. For example:
Quote:
-The Department of Health and Human Services opens a public forum for feedback on whether cosmetic medicine should be paid under Medicaid and Medicare in cases of genderism. The public forum is closed mere hours later and the transgender lobby negotiates with the department in a backroom deal which results in a document issued months later stating that HHS has determined that the ban on cosmetic treatment for genderism has been overturned. The Board is now entering a ?discovery? process to create new standards which allow genderists to access taxpayer-funded cosmetic medicine and procedures to help them appear visually more like the opposite sex.
http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2014 ... in-review/
Now, let's look at the facts. The decision to cover SRS on a case-by-case basis was made by an independent review board within HHS called the Departmental Appeals Board. Because it was an Acceptable NCD Complaint, it went before the Appellate Division, which is staffed by the board members themselves. Here is the decision they issued, which came after a pretty thorough review of the medical record:
http://www.hhs.gov/dab/decisions/dabdec ... ab2576.pdf
Now, who are these Board Members? Are they the evil Homosexual Agenda-ists, the crew of Obama and the Democrats who are taking down this country's moral fiber? Are they evil men's rights activists who are looking to keep women down?
Well, let's take a look at their names and histories, shall we?
Their names appear on page 24 of the deciision:
Leslie A. Sussan
Constance B. Tobias
Sheila Ann Hegy
Well, all these people appear to be women, so I'm not sure they're really the evil men's rights activists. But maybe they're evil Homosexual Agenda Democratic political operatives? Well, let's read up on them:
http://www.hhs.gov/dab/about/members/judges.html
Ms. Sussan was appointed as a board member in 2006. Wait a minute, isn't that when a Republican administration was in office? I don't think Obama was in office yet in 2006. Ms. Tobias was appointed in 2007. Still a Republican administration appointee, as I don't think Obama was in office yet in 2007. Ms. Hegy was also appointed during a Republican administration, in 2005.
This was an independent review board whose board members are all Republican appointees and made the decision that Medicare must cover SRS on a case-by-case basis. I'm not sure what kind of ideology these board members might be following.
Maybe they found in the research that indeed SRS is medically necessary in certain cases, honestly, and came to an honest decision.
I can tell you this, conservatives and radical feminists, blinded by their ideology, will not see this.
They're probably already coming up with a way to hand wave it away.
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"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin
