What twisted planet are we living on?
H/T Investment Watch who adds:
College costs are on the rise–having increased at a rate that outpaces inflation for more than two decades, contributing to record levels of student debt. Nevertheless, Duke University saw fit to raise the cost of its program even more
Campus Reform reports:
–The private university, located in North Carolina, follows Brown and other universities in offering coverage for the controversial operation.
Administrators say they will cover the cost of the reassignment surgery up to $50,000 that will be covered with a cause a 0.3 percent increase to overall student fees.
LGBT advocates on campus immediately celebrated the university’s decision.
“The addition of sexual reassignment surgery with a $50,000 cap makes Duke’s student health care plan one of the most, if not the most, transgender-inclusive plans in the country,” Sunny Frothingham, the outreach chair for Blue Devils United told the Duke Chronicle last week.
The official plan is in-line with a Student Government Resolution passed last March that called upon the school to cover sex change operations. The school previously covered mental health care, hormone therapy and breast augmentation and reduction surgery to students who wished to change their gender. [...]
Liberty News’ Eric Odom opines:
Since when do health care plans need to be transgender-inclusive? This is just downright bizarre.
Indeed.
Crunching the numbers via Liberty Unyielding:
Three tenths of a percent isn’t that much for students who are already paying an estimated $58,865 to attend. The upcharge works out to a mere $177 per academic year. But then again, why should any of that cost be passed along to students who have no use or need for the service? Lambda Legal, a gay rights advocacy group, estimates that 5 to 6 percent of students nationwide are LGBT. Extrapolating that number to Duke, which has an undergraduate enrollment of 6,680, some 400 students are L, G, B, or T. The subset of those students who believe they were born into the wrong body is not publicly stated but is almost certainly smaller. [...]
Next year Duke student health care premiums will rise 8%:
Each year, the Student Health Advisory Committee examines the Duke Student Medical Insurance Plan and reviews how students use the plan to determine if changes need to be made to the benefits provided to students, Wasiolek said.
She added that this is the last step in providing complete coverage to Duke’s transgender community.
“For the past several years, we have considered benefits for transgendered students, looking first at counseling and hormone therapy benefits, then at ‘top’ surgery benefits and most recently at ‘bottom’ surgery benefits,” [Dean of Students Sue] Wasiolek said.
The additional coverage will have a “minimal” impact on cost to students, Wasiolek said. The coverage will cause a 0.3 percent increase to student costs.
Overall, student health care premiums will increase by a total of 8 percent next year, Wasiolek said.
“The plan premium is increasing 8 percent next year, with 4 percent of that increase resulting from taxes associated with the Affordable Care Act,” she said. “The remaining 4 percent is attributed to health care cost trend and benefit enhancements.”
If you want to butcher/mutilate your body as shown in this YouTube video: **WARNING EXTREMELY GRAPHIC**] go for it, no skin off of my bits. BUT the elective procedure should be an unsubsidized choice. Expecting otherwise is a greedy over the top demand.
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