{"id":1371178,"date":"2022-03-11T12:21:11","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T17:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1371178"},"modified":"2022-03-11T12:21:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T17:21:14","slug":"hawaii-lawmakers-advance-bill-to-force-insurance-companies-to-provide-transgender-medical-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hawaii-lawmakers-advance-bill-to-force-insurance-companies-to-provide-transgender-medical-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii Lawmakers Advance Bill to Force Insurance Companies to Provide \u2018Transgender\u2019 Medical Treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhawaii-lawmakers-advance-bill-to-force-insurance-companies-to-provide-transgender-medical-treatment%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1371178&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Lawmakers in Hawaii have advanced legislation that will force insurance companies to cover \u201cgender-affirming\u201d medical treatment for people who claim to be \u201ctransgender\u201d or the opposite of their biological sex.<\/p>\n<p>Although HB 2405 has not received much media coverage, it has been touted on social media and is posted online.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Hawaii HB2405 has been passed! It now goes to the Hawaii senate.<\/p>\n<p>This bill will mandate medical necessity coverage for transgender people for procedures that have previously been deemed cosmetic, such as hair removal, facial feminization surgery, voice therapy, and more! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/wJMqa9J3CZ\">pic.twitter.com\/wJMqa9J3CZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Erin, Trail Mom (@ErinInTheMorn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ErinInTheMorn\/status\/1501565070152802309?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 9, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>The text of the legislation <a href=\"https:\/\/trackbill.com\/bill\/hawaii-house-bill-2405-gender-affirming-treatment-act-insurance-nondiscrimination-transgender-gender-affirming-treatments\/2208943\/\">says<\/a> it is necessary because people who want to undergo life-altering surgeries and other treatment are discriminated against by insurance companies:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The legislature finds that many transgender persons have experienced discriminatory treatment from health insurance providers when seeking coverage for gender\u2011confirming treatments. \u00a0Insurance policies often cover therapies and surgeries like feminizing or masculinizing hormone therapies, voice therapies, chest augmentations or reductions, and genital surgeries for other purposes but deny the same treatments for purposes of gender affirmation.<\/p>\n<p>The legislature finds that these arbitrary assessments of medical necessity are not evidence-based and interfere with the patient-physician relationship. \u00a0They also place transgender persons who are denied treatment at higher risk of suicide and depression.<\/p>\n<p>The legislature recognizes that, while federal health care guidelines previously prohibited health insurance and healthcare providers from discriminating on the basis of gender identity, these protections have been largely rolled back.<\/p>\n<p>Accordingly, the purpose of this Act is to require health insurance companies to provide applicants and policy holders with clear information on the policy\u2019s coverage of gender transition treatments and to prohibit insurance companies from discriminating on the basis of gender identity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The procedures covered under the bill, which is sponsored by the majority Democrat Hawaii state legislature, include:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>(1)\u00a0 Hormone therapies;<\/p>\n<p>(2)\u00a0 Hysterectomies;<\/p>\n<p>(3)\u00a0 Mastectomies;<\/p>\n<p>(4)\u00a0 Vocal training;<\/p>\n<p>(5)\u00a0 Feminizing vaginoplasties;<\/p>\n<p>(6)\u00a0 Masculinizing phalloplasties;<\/p>\n<p>(7)\u00a0 Metaoidioplasties;<\/p>\n<p>(8)\u00a0 Breast augmentations;<\/p>\n<p>(9)\u00a0 Masculinizing chest surgeries;<\/p>\n<p>(10)\u00a0 Facial feminization surgeries;<\/p>\n<p>(11)\u00a0 Reduction thyroid chondroplasties;<\/p>\n<p>(12)\u00a0 Voice surgeries and therapies;<\/p>\n<p>(13)\u00a0 Electrolysis or laser hair removal; and<\/p>\n<p>(14)\u00a0 Smoking cessation therapies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Rachel Levine, a former pediatrician chosen by President Joe Biden to be the assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services \u2014 who is also a man living as a woman \u2014 said, \u201cGender-affirming care is a supportive, non-judgmental model of health care that allows patients to explore and, if they decide, to pursue medical affirmation procedures. It\u2019s recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Penny Starr on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PennyStarrDC\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawmakers in Hawaii have advanced legislation that will force insurance companies to cover \u201cgender-affirming\u201d medical treatment for people who claim to be \u201ctransgender\u201d or the opposite of their biological sex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1371178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1371178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1371178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1371178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1371178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}