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Thread: Obamacare and SRS
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06-30-2012 #31
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
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- 36
Re: Obamacare and SRS
This is a very interesting thread. As it's covered by the NHS here in the UK, I'd instinctively assume it would come under the US helathcare system too.
Wjile I've read on some threads here that a minority of tgirls are gay men who transition to earn more money (mainly in poorer areas such as Brazil, I believe?), this isn't the case for most transwomen.
It's not cosmetic surgey in the vain, chosen way (ie wanting bigger boobs or getting a tattoo removed) but it is similar to cosmetic corrective surgery (eg rebuilding post-masectomy tissues, facial scarring, etc) in that is is altering the body to allow that individual to act in society with less confrontation, self esteem or personal distress issues. For all the things I've read about kids being put on puberty blockers until they are old enough to decide whether to transition permanently (which makes sense), I haven't read much about people outgrowing their gender issues (there are a few people who have detransitioned but I belive they are the minority, most people dropping out before transitioning if they are unsure about it?).
While essentially a mental condition, the distress of living in the wrong body and not being able to present your core self is obviously acute, hence the suicide/drug stories. While it may be more logical to tackle the mental problems, as someone with lifeliong problems leading to pretty serious mental health issues myself, I know that not all such problems can be solved with medication or therapy/counselling, etc.
Because of that, sometimes medical procedures are a better, more effective route for some individuals and i believe most trans people would sooner transition than "flip the gender switch internally". It may be more costly but it will be the preferred, better route for alot of trans people.
The older the person transitioning (certainlt MTF), the more cosmetic work will be required (eg, chin shaves, eyebrow lifts, etc, which probably wouldn't be covered and would need to be privately funded) so the more understanding medical services and society are of these issues, the better for youngsters. Of course, dealing with kids in making life-altering decisions will always be a tricky process but that's a different argument
So, long ramble short: yes, SRS
should be covered...
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07-01-2012 #32
Re: Obamacare and SRS
Do you really want the gov't involved in your transition decisions? They (or their agents as Doctors will become) will tell you how much therapy you need before you are allowed to start. How you take your hormones. Where you get your hormones. (No overseas pharmacies btw) What doctor you go to. Maybe you want to go to Dr. So and so for SRS, but they have assigned you someone else. Maybe you want certain procedures for FFS, but might they say you don't need it or aren't qualified? How about your timetable. Maybe you're ready for SRS or augmentation now but they say take a number instead. Beware of what you ask for because you might get it.
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07-01-2012 #33
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
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- Corner booth at the Titty Twister
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- 10,507
Re: Obamacare and SRS
I don't see how anything you've mentioned is a problem.
They (or their agents as Doctors will become) will tell you how much therapy you need before you are allowed to start.
Where you get your hormones. (No overseas pharmacies btw)
What doctor you go to. Maybe you want to go to Dr. So and so for SRS, but they have assigned you someone else.
Maybe you want certain procedures for FFS, but might they say you don't need it or aren't qualified?
I hate being bipolar...It's fucking ace!
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07-01-2012 #34
Re: Obamacare and SRS
I do have a problem with gatekeepers and a gatekeeper system. I have a problem with people having to wrestle with the gov't to get what they want. Do you think the gov't knows best or believe they always act in your best interest? Maybe some trans girls don't want to go through with the RLE and other bullshit hoops as mandated by the standards of care some doctors and gov'ts follow just to get hormones. Chalk fillers? Wrong. Familiarize yourself with the Yahoo DIY group to learn more. There's already a bill pending that will make it illegal to buy drugs from overseas pharmacies. Ask girls in other countries where this is already illegal how they feel about that. Without the overseas pharmacies the black market will take over. You worry about chalk fillers? Wait for that to happen. Waiting list? Unacceptable. Not a dictatorship? What do you call it when the gov't has this much control of your life. For those who have not experienced tyranny, it's hard to imagine. This history of mankind has been fraught with tyranny and control of the individual. It's only the last few hundred years that so many have been able to live a life of liberty and freedom. Let's not cede our liberty back to those who are more than willing to take it.
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07-01-2012 #35
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07-01-2012 #36
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07-01-2012 #37
Re: Obamacare and SRS
Jericho is messing with you - just one of his many skills. Consider this though. Both he and I live in a country that has had what you choose to call "socialised" medicine for over 60 years. It provides healthcare free at the point of demand in return for a contribution to the general tax burden and through the "job tax" of national insurance. Every other developed economy except the USA plays comparable variations on the same healthcare tune. And the NHS, despite its faults, is the most universally loved institution in the UK, up there with the BBC, both founded on the principle of providing excellent publicly-funded service.
Your fear that "the government" will make decisions about the quality and timing of care is essentially groundless. Here, all key decisions are made by clinicians and locally by general practitioners. The "government", other than setting the overall budget, plays no part in that. If you study the general response to the current Tory - right-wing - government's proposals to make fundamental changes to healthcare organisation and spending by essentially privatising key aspects of the system, you'll discover suspicion, fear and loss, and the recognition that they are attempting to dismantle what has come to be embraced as one of the most admirable things about being British.
The NHS is far from perfect, but rather that than the US version of social Darwinism red in tooth and claw. Is the principle of rugged individualism worth defending when it allows the poor to suffer and die? I hope that your answer to that question will be no.
Oh, and SRS is available on the NHS. Women seeking the surgery have to go through rigorous and searching (sometimes brutally so) processes before they can move to the final procedure. I know - several ts friends of mine have gone through it, so any suggestion that the NHS is knowingly underwriting "cosmetic" surgery in such cases is simply untrue.
Add the fact that the procedure is carried out under the cleanest and most stringent of conditions by the best expert surgeons that the NHS can provide and a girl has little to fear, unlike in the US where the prohibitive costs of self-funding often drive them abroad to places where standards are less scrupulous, to say the least, and the results, as already pointed out in this thread, are unsatisfactory or worse.
But pleasures are like poppies spread
You seize the flow'r, the bloom is shed
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07-03-2012 #38
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07-03-2012 #39
Re: Obamacare and SRS
The NHS is very far from perfect... and this in part due to chronic underfunding and a clear desire by the present UK Government to privatise parts of it.
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07-03-2012 #40
- Join Date
- Jul 2008
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- 13,572
Re: Obamacare and SRS
Prospero although most of what you say is true, it may just be that the NHS has not had the time or resources -or the clinicians interested in SRS to give it a better reputation. As well as the variation in quality across the UK in, for example, specific forms of cancer, there are some disciplines the NHS has never excelled at, Psychiatry being another. In recent years the cost of SRS world-wide has come down and I think this and the speed with which it can be arranged in Thailand make the NHS a second choice for many people. On the other hand, maybe the NHS, by making it harder and longer to get SRS begs the question of the patient who may insist on SRS when in fact they need treatment of some other kind...
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