VA considers gender-confirming surgery for veterans

The term "service connected" has no meaning at this point in time.

Ridiculous!

Gender-reassignment is not a legitimate medical necessity.

Two questions: How many veterans who have been waiting for basic healthcare and/or emergent, life-or-death treatment (ie cancer) for months (or years) are going to be forced to wait even longer, or DIE, because VA wants to designate scarce, mismanaged resources to rendering ELECTIVE medical care?? Military service does NOT cause gender-identity issues. Period. Not the government's, or the taxpayers', responsibility to ante up for these procedures.

And, who in their right mind would allow the VA to perform such a relatively new and complicated surgery when VA has a long track record of maiming/killing people by attempting to perform routine surgeries that are commonplace in medicine today? Before these 134,000 folks start lining up, they need to do research on the number of 1151 claims the VA is paying out right now and how many 1151 claims are filed each year.

“Gender confirmation surgery is often a critically important and medically necessary treatment for many transgender veterans" Ashley Broadway-Mack, president of the American Military Partner Association, is quoted as saying. “So many of our nation’s heroes, including transgender veterans, rely on the VA for medical care — care that they have earned serving our nation." Um, what? We didn't 'earn' the right to demand the taxpayers foot the bill for any and every little whim we have. Unless the military seriously, seriously botched an adult circumcision, then gender reassignment is not a legitimate expense the American taxpayers should have to pay.

I feel badly for those people who feel they were born in the wrong body, but it is not America's responsibility to foot the medical bills for reassignment just because somebody wore the boots for a little while. If we're going to play by those rules, then we need to open it up to ALL elective procedures for conditions that might cause mental distress. In a few years, I'd like to have the option of cosmetic surgery due to the mid-life crisis I'm going to have because I won't look 25 any more is going to cause me severe emotional distress and I'd like someone else to pay for it. JM&J already!