Smart Alec | Inequality without reason

Next year, Penn will exclude medically necessary treatment for some transsexuals from the staff and faculty healthcare plan. It will do so despite the heartfelt pleas of its employees, despite the recommendation of its benefits committee, despite the miniscule cost of the addition and despite the inclusion of exactly those benefits in the student healthcare plan this year. Why?

A small number of transgender people require “triadic treatment,” which involves counseling, hormone therapy and surgery. These reconstructive procedures are not optional — they are medically essential. And the complications for not completing the course of treatment can be deadly.

In a statement as warm and human as a thrown knife, the University asserts that triadic treatment is simply too costly to include for faculty and staff. After all, medical expenses have been going through the roof. Yet if we take Vice President for Human Resources Jack Heuer’s own figures for Penn’s estimated costs given to University Council on Wednesday and run them through the analysis used by the City of San Francisco (developed over ten years of experience with these treatments), the cost of covering triadic treatment for staff and faculty is about the same as it is with students — slightly more than $1 per person per year.

So, if it’s so cheap, what gives? Here’s my theory. The reason behind the denial is simple. It boils down to two things — perspiration and politics.

Begin with the perspiration. The University decided long ago that protecting its core business was more important than making principled stands on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

This is how we can explain that ROTC has remained on campus despite three University Council resolutions demanding that it go. This is why Penn would rather wait a decade for the Defense of Marriage Act to be repealed than compensate domestic partners their inequitable tax burden today. LGBT people are just not a priority when there’s lots of money at stake. It’s the only theory that fits the facts.

Sometimes, of course, we are a priority — when the perspiration is very small or the payoffs are very large. Thus a heartfelt “It Gets Better” video, requiring only time and a script, is easily accomplished. Domestic partner benefits were essential for Penn to compete for LGBT faculty and staff. And since every major ranking of undergraduate LGBT-friendliness includes student health coverage of transgender therapy, the pennies per student are well worth the possibility of big banners advertising how diverse we are — the probable reason why students are covered and staff are not.

Which segues nicely into politics. As the cost of health care continues to rise, pressure is increasing on administrators to demonstrate that they are controlling employee benefit expenses. How do you do that? By excluding particular kinds of coverage from the plan as proof of our being “responsible.” In good time, the treatments will be covered, but for now they must be cut to show economy.

So the transgender population of this University has been sold down the river in order to satiate an administrative desire for cuts. Penn could add transgender treatment to the plan tomorrow if it wanted. After all, it managed to add autism care for dependents to the plan this year, a worthy addition that was far more expensive than triadic treatment.

A healthcare plan cannot cover every possible treatment. But when the treatments are so essential to the lives of University staff — and so bound up in an identity against which Penn has pledged not to discriminate — then no matter the cost, our choice should be clear.

The administration deeply cares about our institution and its welfare. Every cut it proposes is well-intentioned. But with a cost this small and a principle this important, sometimes you just have to damn the expense.

Alec Webley is a College senior and former chairman of the Undergraduate Assembly. His e-mail address is webley@theDP.com. Smart Alec appears every Thursday.

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