September 9th, 2012 by Robert Franklin, Esq.
Not long ago, I wrote this post encouraging readers to sign a petition to make the Affordable Care Act gender-neutral. As I said at the time, the ACA mandates well woman exams, including a variety of preventive screenings, for all women completely free of charge, no deductibles, no co-pays. But it does nothing of the kind for men. Whatever we may think we need in the way of preventive care, we pay for; the ACA leaves us on our own. When it comes to preventive care, the ACA rations our preventive care according to our ability to pay, but requires providers to screen women at no cost.
That struck me and the other signers of the petition as (a) sexist and (b) bad policy. After all, doesn’t effective preventive care for men save the healthcare system money in the long term the same as it does for women? Of course it does, so, since the ACA is so much about keeping costs down that it’s part of the law’s name, why not go all in? Why not include men’s preventive care along with women’s? And that of course is in addition to the fact that, as a matter of morality, fairness and justice, men and women should receive equal treatment by public policy. Men contribute far more to tax revenues than do women, so why does the ACA short men?
All of that should be perfectly obvious, even though it escaped the notice of the Obama Administration that wrote the law and everyone on Capitol Hill who voted for it. But, thanks to the intrepid work of a Fathers and Families supporter, we now have the problem fixed. No, we haven’t gotten the president and Congress to re-write the law or the regulations, but what we have done is to figure out a handy-dandy fix that every man can use to get his fair share of preventive care, free of charge, even though he’s persona non grata in the wording of the act. And (drumroll) here it is:
Just tell ‘em you identify as a woman.
That’s right, our fearless reader informs us that the Department of Health and Human Services recently sent a letter to the National Center for Lesbian Rights confirming that the ACA prohibits discrimination “based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity…” In short, the ACA has been interpreted by the DHHS as prohibiting discrimination against lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered people. Of course transgendering is a process that includes a pre-operative period.
So the fix is simple; when you go to the doctor to be screened for various possible male-only maladies and conditions, just tell them you identify as a woman and are in the first stage of re-orientation. According to DHHS rules, they have to screen you for free. You don’t even have to wear a dress.
Admittedly, if you do this too often, the doctor might begin to question your commitment to the transgendering process. But not to worry, by then the Obama Administration will have discovered the error of its ways, changed the law to include men in its protections, and all will be well in this best of all possible worlds. Until then, you have Fathers and Families to thank for fixing what could be considered one of the most egregious examples of misandry to come along since Joe Biden last uttered a word.