Transgender man receives $93,000 healthcare bill after suicide attempt
Oliver Jordan, transgender man who received a $93,000 healthcare bill (Twitter)
A transgender man has received an enormous bill of $93,000 for eight nights spent in a medical centre after a suicide attempt.
Oliver Jordan—who is from Tulsa, Oklahoma—posted a photo of the bill on Twitter, which has since gone viral, amassing more than 30,000 likes and retweets.
He captioned the photo: “This is how expensive it is to attempt suicide in the US.”
Oliver Jordan said the bill left him feeling ‘hopeless’
Jordan told the New York Post that he is lucky to have health insurance—which means that the amount he has to pay is $2,850 instead of $93,000.
Despite this, he said that he will still be in debt for several years after the event and said the cost had left him feeling “hopeless.”
He said that the cost would be “utterly catastrophic” for somebody who didn’t have health insurance.
“I recently had a change in insurance and it no longer covers my top surgery at all, so I’m needing to raise the full amount.”
– Transgender man Oliver Jordan
The bill shows that he was charged over $10,000 to stay in a room in the medical centre for eight nights.
Meanwhile, another cost—simply put as “Pharmacy-General”—came to more than $6,000 for eight days.
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Transgender man Oliver Jordan is also fundraising for top surgery
Jordan is also fundraising at the moment so he can have top surgery. He has raised $1,311 of $6,000 so far.
Writing on his GoFundMe page, Jordan said: “I’ve been out as transgender for over four years now, I’ve been on testosterone (hormone replacement therapy) for nearly three years, and I’m hoping to have top surgery as soon as possible.
“The largest point of my dysphoria is my chest. Binding helps, but it’s caused me to break ribs and miss out on so many things I enjoy due to the pain, the decreased lung capacity, and shortness of breath.
“To be able to not wear a binder would be my greatest dream. I recently had a change in insurance and it no longer covers my top surgery at all, so I’m needing to raise the full amount. Any donations are highly appreciated, anything will help!”
The US spends more on health care per capita than most other developed countries, with the main reason for the prohibitively high cost being higher prices, according to a recent study from John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The study’s lead author, Gerard F. Anderson said: “In spite of all the efforts in the US to control health spending over the past 25 years, the story remains the same—the US remains the most expensive because of the prices the US pays for health services.”
