If You Say You’re Trans, Health Care Providers Will Happily Cook The Books
A few years ago, I officially became a middle-aged dad by tearing my Achilles during a casual game of pick-up basketball in the driveway. A short time later I was at the hospital, where, after a long and rather physically agonizing wait in the waiting room, the doctor gave me Tylenol and told me that I had to get an MRI and see a specialist. A week later, I had finally been officially diagnosed with a torn Achilles, at which point I was informed of all the options and the risks that accompany each option. Of course the only reasonable option was to get surgery to repair the Achilles, but still I had to be informed that, for example, doing nothing and letting it heal on its own was a path that could be chosen, though it was certainly not recommended. I decided to go with the surgery.
This was all a pretty standard experience. And here’s what didn’t happen. I didn’t make a 22-minute video call and get approved for the surgery based on my claims alone. They didn’t give me an Achilles surgery merely because I said I wanted one. They didn’t simply take my word for it. And if the doctor had looked at the MRI and determined that my Achilles was not torn, he would not do the surgery anyway just to affirm my feeling that it was torn.
That’s not how medicine works. Unless, of course, you work in the gender transition industry.
It’s been 24-hours since we published the results of our undercover investigation into the single largest “trans healthcare” provider in the United States. The provider we’re talking about is called “Plume,” and it operates in 41 states. It’s backed by some of the biggest insurance companies and VCs in the country. And it’s totally fraudulent.
In case you missed it the other day, after a 22-minute video call, Plume approved one of my producers for an orchiectomy — which means testicle removal. No one at Plume had seen my producer, who’s name is Gregg, before that call. They didn’t verify any of his information, which was obviously made up. They didn’t double-check the phony legal name he provided. They didn’t bat an eye when Gregg identified as “Chelsea Bussey,” and claimed to be a strong independent woman in need of immediate castration. No one at Plume thought that there was anything odd about all of this, even though Gregg made precisely zero effort to pass as a woman, and clearly had no idea what an orchiectomy would entail. Plume just rubber-stamped Gregg for testicle removal. All he had to do was send Plume $150. And in return, Plume sent Gregg a letter saying he has “gender dysphoria,” so that insurance would pay for his testicle removal, even though he repeatedly told them he didn’t have gender dysphoria.
Let’s pause for a moment to consider one of the ironies of this whole saga, which Manhattan Institute fellow Leor Sapir pointed out the other day. The same insurance companies that will invent a fake dysphoria diagnosis for a “trans patient” will often refuse to cover healthcare for de-transitioners, on the basis that they don’t have dysphoria. In other words, if you say you’re trans, then health care providers will happily cook the books and say you have “dysphoria” when you don’t. But if you say you’re de-transitioning, and you’re not a member of the preferred class of transgenders, then insurers deny your coverage, because your “identity” now aligns with your biological sex. See how that works?
This politically motivated barbarism, which is totally incoherent, is supposedly the bleeding-edge of “trans healthcare.” You can see footage of Gregg’s call with Plume on Twitter, although fair warning — as Elon Musk said, it is disturbing. It’ll completely destroy your faith in modern “medicine,” assuming you have any faith left, which you probably shouldn’t. Here’s some of Gregg’s call:
Subscribe to read the rest, or go look for the thread on twitter.
Just right for a drooling double digit IQ society of serf slaves too stupid to revolt, just smart enough to keep the machines running.
Burning it all down is never a bug.