Gay News Flash: Insurers in New York Must Cover Gender Reassignment Surgery

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo | Photo by Shutterstock.com

This week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will send letters to insurance carriers in his state notifying them that they must cover gender-reassignment surgeries that are deemed by a doctor to be medically necessary. More from The New York Times:

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is warning insurance companies that they will no longer be allowed to deny gender reassignment surgery or other treatment to change a person’s gender, like hormone therapy, if a doctor has deemed that treatment medically necessary.

In a letter being sent to insurance companies this week, the governor said that because state law requires insurance coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders, people who are found to have a mismatch between their birth sex and their internal sense of gender are entitled to insurance coverage for treatments related to that condition, called gender dysphoria.

“An issuer of a policy that includes coverage for mental health conditions may not exclude coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria,” the governor’s letter says.

This will make New York the ninth state to require coverage. Others include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Washington, D.C., which mandates it. Let’s hope to see Pennsylvania on the list soon. Hey, Governor-Elect Wolf?