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Maryland Moves to Expand Health Coverage to Low-Income Trans* Residents

Low-income Maryland trans* residents may for the first time get health insurance coverage for transition-related services, after the state moved forward with new regulations expanding health-care services covered by Medicaid.

Low-income Maryland trans* residents may for the first time get health insurance coverage for transition-related services, after the state moved forward with new regulations expanding health-care services covered by Medicaid. Shutterstock

Low-income Maryland trans* residents may for the first time get health insurance coverage for transition-related services, after the state moved forward with new regulations expanding health-care services covered by Medicaid.

The Medicaid expansion would kick off in April, according to the Baltimore Sun.

The action comes on the heels of a similar decision the state made this year to provide coverage for transition-related health-care services of state employees. As a result of a lawsuit filed on behalf of a transgender University of Maryland employee, the state agreed to add language to its health insurance plans that expands coverage of services for transgender people, including hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery.

Karen Black, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told the Sun that the “same terms” of coverage would be applied to Medicaid patients, assuming that the federal government approves the changes.

The federal government seems likely to approve the expansion. In June, transgender exclusions were removed from federal employees’ health plans. And a month earlier, the exclusions were removed from Medicare coverage.

Trans* people often face significant barriers to accessing health care, both transition-related and not. From explicit exclusion of care in health plans, to the denial of coverage for transgender people altogether, to provider transphobia and a lack of understanding of gender outside of a binary, the medical system in the United States often falls far short of providing quality care for trans* patients.

Only a few states have made similar changes, including California, Massachusetts, and Oregon. And in June, a lawsuit was filed against New York that seeks to expand Medicaid coverage for transition-related care.