This is something that is such good news.
I will include some of the idiocracy in the comment section of the articles so you can share my outrage at the bottom of the diary.
Mayor Sam Adams to Propose Trans‐Inclusive Health Care Benefits for City Employees (PDF):
This week, Mayor Sam Adams is filing an ordinance for City Council on
June 8 that would add trans‐inclusive
health care benefits, including sexual reassignment surgery, to one of the
plans offered to City of Portland
employees. The American Medical Association (AMA) has identified
transgender health care as being
medically necessary. In 2008, the AMA passed a resolution supporting
public and private health insurance
coverage for treatment of gender identity disorder and opposing the
“exclusions of coverage for treatment of
gender identity disorder when prescribed by a physician.”
"As Mayor, it is important to me that we attract and retain the
best and brightest employees to the City of
Portland. Offering non‐discriminatory health care benefits‐‐as leading employers like Nike, Google, Microsoft
and IBM do‐‐is one way to accomplish that goal," Mayor Adams said.
"Covering basic, medically‐necessary
care is a matter of fairness, and it's the right thing to do."
“We all know someone who has been denied medically necessary care by an
insurance company,” said Jeana
Frazzini, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon. “This proposal would
ensure thatdecisions about health
care are made between doctor and patient.”
More after the squiggle:
From Oregon Live:
The mayor's proposal, if approved by the City Council next month when it's scheduled for a vote, would override a decision by a city committee that each year looks at the health benefits the city offers through its self-insurance fund.
A majority of that committee, a board made up of union representatives and managers from city government, voted to approve the expanded benefits for transgender employees. But the rules of the committee require a consensus vote to recommend a change.
Adams estimates the new benefits would cost the city about $32,000 a year, an estimated .08 percent increase.
This is amazing news.
From Portland Tribune:
The city offers two health care plans to employees, a Kaiser plan and a self-insured plan. If approved by council, the self-insured CityCore plan, which covers 66 percent of employees, would cover sexual reassignment surgery. Hormone therapy and counseling are already covered by this plan.
Now for the imbecility comments that show the writer just does not have a clue.
Portland Tribune Commenters:
Ughh, it amazes me how they will try to have it to where someone who was born a woman to become a man, yet there are people out there with real medical issues that can't receive health care, but the mayor wants to pass a bill so some one can try to change the genetic makeup God made them while people who seriously need medical care go without,how sick is that. Oregon is becoming a sick and perverted place, and all I can say is Sodom and Gomorrah and we know what happen to them they were destroyed, and Oregon is heading the same direction. I am going to pray for this city, because we need Jesus like never before. How shameful will pay for a surgery for someone to change their body parts, but not help those with real life threatening issues sickening....
At time when budgets are crimped and health care costs are rising. Is it appropriate to pay for elective surgery? How many health care plans do you know that cover face lifts, boob jobs, tummy tuck, botox and other elective cosmetic surgery? All my years in corporate America, I have never seen a plan that cover these things. Why should our government workers be covered on the taxpayers dime?
And the obligatory right wing shouter with a CT bonus.
TAXES SO HIGH OREGONIANS ARE LOOSING THEIR HOMES, NO JOBS, NO IMMEDIATE HOPE INSIGHT FOR OREGON, BUT 'MAYOR SAM-( I DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS A MINOR)-ADAMS' IS HERE WITH ANOTHER TAX INCREASE TO BENEFIT HIS FAVORED FEW.
NOW THERE MIGHT BE THE REAL STORY: HOW CITY EMPLOYEES EARNED THE MAYOR'S EFFORTS.
From Oregon Live Comments:
Can Portland citizens please recall this moron or vote him out of office?!? Is this really the most important pressing issue in Portland? Following an example set by San Fran is not the way to go, and makes you look silly. I have nothing against transgen people, but using the public dime to provide for these operations: Adams has completely lost the plot (that is the story of his life). Why not use the $32,000 to put in more bike paths??? Ah...Portland...
That is right just a measly $32,000 but since Transgender people benefit we can't have it.