It probably won't be long until liberals start arguing that gender reassignment surgery is a basic right that needs to be covered by all health care providers, but today is not that day. Earlier this week, the Ohio library system ruled that it will not be covering gender reassignment surgery for its 410 employees on their health care system.
“It’s ultimately a business decision.” said Chris Rice of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County to FOX19 NOW. “It’s a quarter of a million dollars to add all the bearing riders to our health insurance policy. It’s what’s best for the library and all of its employees.”
Funding for libraries is at a low point, having been slashed by 28 percent since 2008. Health insurance is also expected to increase by 8.7 percent next year. Needless to say, the library system does not have enough capital to add that procedure to its coverage. The library system will also not be adding gastric bypass surgery and infertility treatments, which would affect many more of their employees, because of their lack of funding.
But the decision hasn't made some employees very happy. Rachel Dovel, an transgender employee of the Ohio public library system for 10 years, isn’t willing to take no for an answer.
Dovel wants to undergo gender reassignment surgery, an operation expected to cost about $25,000. Now, he's hired an attorney to sue the library system to get his way.
Some health care providers, about five percent, have already taken the plunge and agreed to include gender reassignment surgery in their services. They most likely consider it the safer route than not covering them because the additional coverage is usually relatively small (for one of those health care providers it only increased by .02 percent) and a lawsuit would cost more than that.
“It’s really disappointing that [the library system] has subjected themselves to a federal lawsuit by treating this as an elective procedure rather than a civil rights battle,” says Dovel’s attorney Josh Langdon. “The library has chosen not to stand by its LGBT employees in a positive way.”
What's really disappointing is that Dovel doesn't see that the library’s decision to not cover the surgery has nothing to do with ‘civil rights’; the library system does not have the money to cover gender reassignment surgery, and suing them is not going to help that. Besides, even if the library system did have the money to add the procedure to their insurance plan, they should prioritize procedures that could potentially help out all of their employees, not just the transgender super-minority.