DENVER, CO - AUGUST 8: (Daily Caller)U.S.
President Barack Obama speaks during a grassroots campaign stop at the
Auraria Events Center August 8, 2012 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Marc
Piscotty/Getty Images)
In an academic article published last
year, contraception advocate Sandra Fluke made the case that private
health insurers should be required to pay for sex change operations.
Fluke
has become a vocal surrogate of the Democratic Party and is scheduled
to address the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.,
Wednesday night. On Tuesday afternoon she appeared
at a Planned Parenthood “Yes We Plan” rally outside the convention
venue, where condoms in anti-Republican packaging were distributed. [RELATED: Planned Parenthood distributes condoms with message: "Protect yourself from Romney & Ryan"]
She
thrust herself into the media spotlight in February when she told the
House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee that many of her
Georgetown Law School classmates were without birth control pills
because the university’s insurance plan was not forced to cover it.
Fluke
and co-editor Karen Hu advocated remaking U.S. law to remove what they
called a “gender bias” at the root of denying coverage for “transgender
medical needs,” describing it as “a prime example of direct
discrimination.” [RELATED: Sandra Fluke chickening out on women’s issues debate with Breitbart’s Dana Loesch?]
“Transgender
persons wishing to undergo the gender reassignment process frequently
face heterosexist employer health insurance policies that label
[gender-reassignment] surgery as cosmetic, or medically unnecessary and
therefore uncovered,” Fluke and Hu wrote for the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.
The review article was titled “Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons” and appeared in print in 2011.
By
some estimates, sex change operations can cost between $15,000 and
$20,000; the cost for some procedures can be as high as $50,000. Fluke
and other advocates want insurers to cover all such operations. In
general, assuming the costs of new coverage mandates tends to raise
rates for all enrollees in a given health-care plan.(MORE)