Just in time for the latest Affordable Care Act open enrollment, which runs until February 15, 2015, LGBTQ advocacy group One Colorado has released a health insurance shopping guide for transgender Coloradans. The group deemed three insurers — Cigna, Colorado Choice and United — unfriendly to transgender insurance shoppers.
Despite the fact that transgender Coloradans still face high barriers to accessing health care, years of advocacy by One Colorado and advancements in regulating the health insurance industry have resulted in some big wins for transgender Coloradans.
“The ACA includes gender identity in its nondiscrimination clause,” said Leo Kattari, the Health Policy Manager at One Colorado, noting that state statute makes a similar prohibition.
With these provisions behind them, transgender health advocates were able to secure a bulletin from the Colorado Division of Insurance saying that exclusions, such as those One Colorado has identified in United, Cigna and Colorado Choice’s 2015 plans, are discriminatory. Colorado is one of just seven states nationwide with such protections.
Colorado’s Affordable Care Act insurance exchange lives online at Connect for Health.
[Image by Jidanni, via Wikimedia Commons]
