Senators Join Call to Repeal VA’s Ban on Care for Transgender Vets
Yesterday a group of U.S. Senators sent a letter urging the Veterans Administration to eliminate its blanket ban on medically necessary transition-related surgeries for transgender veterans. The Senators, led by Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and other members of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, stated:
Our veterans, through proud service and sacrifice for their country, have earned our respect, admiration and every one of the benefits provided to them through the Department [of Veterans Affairs]. They all deserve access to medically necessary care through the VA and it is imperative that you act swiftly to remove the outdated and unjustified exclusion that denies many transgender veterans the treatment that they need.
The letter follows a similar one last week from members of the U.S. House’s Transgender Equality Task Force.
While the VA has taken some important steps to improve health care for transgender veterans in recent years, the complete ban on surgical care violates the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition on gender-based discrimination in federally-funded health programs. The VA announced in June it was considering changing the ban, acknowledging it flies in the face of current medical science, but has not yet formally started the process of repealing it.
As the Senators’ letter notes, the VA exclusion “denies transgender veterans critically important care currently available to VA civilian employees, Medicare beneficiaries and active duty service members.” The Defense Department announced in June that it would provide all medically necessary care for current military service members who transition, including needed surgeries. The Senate letter also points out that employers that cover procedures for transgender workers—including many states, cities, and Fortune 500 companies—have found there is little to no net cost to do so. Federal and state regulators have made the same conclusion in banning transgender exclusions in private plans.
NCTE has long urged the VA to repeal the transgender ban, and in May the Transgender Law Center and Lambda Legal filed a formal rulemaking petition with the VA on behalf of two individual veterans. The VA exclusion has become an outlier in federal health programs, and one more barrier between veterans and the health care they have earned. We thank the Senators who have stood up for our transgender veterans.
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