US: University of Maryland insurance plans may soon include cover for gender reassignment
Gender reassignment surgery may be covered by the University of Maryland’s student insurance plans.
The Diamondback newspaper says the health care centre at the university included gender reassignment in proposals to insurance underwriting companies.
The newspaper wrote that the care centre “submitted proposals to three separate companies detailing what the university would like its new plan to include”.
The proposals “include coverage of up to $100,000 (£61,000) for any kind of sexual reassignment procedure”, it continued.
According to reports, the health care centre is tasked with overseeing student-run health plans.
Current healthcare plans do not cover the procedure, and some have pointed out that this could be argued discriminatory.
Speaking to the paper was Nicholas Sakurai, the associate director of the university’s LGBT Equity Center, who said the coverage “would definitely bring us a lot [closer] to where we want to be to make sure we’re not discriminating as an institution.”
The diversity director of the student government, Joe Ehrenkrantz, said that failing to do so was the equal to “calculating discrimination into the cost of health insurance.”
