The "Tremendous Medical Costs" of Transgendered People in the Military

[Sunstone]

When Trump tweeted this morning that he was banning transgendered people from the military in part because of their "tremendous medical costs", many folks on the right uncritically parroted his reasoning, foolishly forgetting that Trump cannot be relied on for accurate and truthful information. Well, the long and short of it is their forgetfulness, and Donald Trump himself, (predictably) made fools of them.

Upon examination, the "tremendous medical costs" of transgendered people don't seem all that big at all.

While Trump didn’t offer any numbers to support this claim, a Defense Department-commissioned study published last year by the Rand Corp. provides exhaustive estimates of transgender servicemembers’ potential medical costs.

Considering the prevalence of transgender servicemembers among the active duty military and the typical health care costs for gender transition-related medical treatment, the Rand study estimated that these treatments would cost the military between $2.4 million and $8.4 million annually.

The study didn’t include estimates of these costs for reservists, due to “their highly limited military health care eligibility.” It also didn’t include estimates for retirees or military family members, because many of those individuals may also have “limited eligibility” for care via military treatment facilities.

“The implication is that even in the most extreme scenario that we were able to identify . . . we expect only a 0.13-percent ($8.4 million out of $6.2 billion) increase in health care spending,” Rand’s authors concluded.

[Source]

To put that figure of 2.4 to 8.4 million dollars in context, the military currently spends 84 million dollars annually on erectile dysfunction according to the Military Times, 41.6 million of that on Viagra alone. Meanwhile a single M1A2 tank costs the US 8.92 million dollars. So, even the highest expected cost of having transgendered folks in the military is less than the cost of a single tank. [Source] [Source]

Obviously, the medical costs of transgendered service members are negligible. Equally obvious to the wise, one should not trust Trump to disseminate accurate or truthful information.

Related Article: Transgendered Former Seal Team Six Member to Donald Trump: "Let's meet face to face and you tell me I'm not worthy".

 

[Flame]

To put into graph form on how "tremendous" this cost actually is.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

Yeah, move on people, nothing to see here. A cynical politician throwing his religious/bigoted following a bone, knowing it could never impact on his popularity ratings in a negative way. Cynical, regressive, unjustified? Yes. A vote loser? No.

Trump is a businessman, I very strongly suspect he doesn't give a flying Kahuna about this issue, but it can only elevate him in the eyes of the simpletons who see him as a modern messiah.

Lets focus on the performance of the American economy and the impact of American foreign policy I say. Keep the magnifying glass in the right area.

 

[Nakosis]

When Trump tweeted this morning that he was banning transgendered people from the military in part because of their "tremendous medical costs", many folks on the right uncritically parroted his reasoning, foolishly forgetting that Trump cannot be relied on for accurate and truthful information. Well, the long and short of it is their forgetfulness, and Donald Trump himself, (predictably) made fools of them.

Upon examination, the "tremendous medical costs" of transgendered people don't seem all that big at all.

[Source]

To put that figure of 2.4 to 8.4 million dollars in context, the military currently spends 84 million dollars annually on erectile dysfunction according to the Military Times, 41.6 million of that on Viagra alone. Meanwhile a single M1A2 tank costs the US 8.92 million dollars. So, even the highest expected cost of having transgendered folks in the military is less than the cost of a single tank. [Source] [Source]

Obviously, the medical costs of transgendered service members are negligible. Equally obvious to the wise, one should not trust Trump to disseminate accurate or truthful information.

Related Article: Transgendered Former Seal Team Six Member to Donald Trump: "Let's meet face to face and you tell me I'm not worthy".

Really how many Trans-gendered people are there in the military? Can't be that many.

"RAND based its study on data from previous research, and estimated midrange figures of 2,450 transgender people in active duty and 1,510 in reserves. There are about 1.2 million active duty military servicemembers overall."

How Many Transgender People Serve in the Military?

 

[Mindmaster]

To put into graph form on how "tremendous" this cost actually is.

It's only money... let's give it all away! Er, those .0001 percent or less of troops cost nearly 2-3x (just guesstimating) what the rest do... It's a legitimate gripe!

 

[lewisnotmiller]

It's only money... let's give it all away! Er, those .0001 percent or less of troops cost nearly 2-3x (just guesstimating) what the rest do... It's a legitimate gripe!

Not from an accounting perspective, which seems to be the argument he made. It falls under the umbrella of 'materiality'. Basically, the cost is small enough that it should not impact the decision either way. He should make the decision based on other concerns.

 

[suncowiam]

It's only money... let's give it all away! Er, those .0001 percent or less of troops cost nearly 2-3x (just guesstimating) what the rest do... It's a legitimate gripe!

Much like the OP, let's not pretend that your true position is about cost.

 

[Mindmaster]

Much like the OP, let's not pretend that your true position is about cost.

\\

Let's not presume that I have any negative opinion of transgenders, since I don't. I just don't think identities are a big deal.

 

[Kapalika]

It's only money... let's give it all away! Er, those .0001 percent or less of troops cost nearly 2-3x (just guesstimating) what the rest do... It's a legitimate gripe!

Not really. I know of tons of more conditions much more costly than transitioning. Considering even at market value for a civillian consumer it's less than a $100 a month for the medication if you go all out of pocket. Locally a couple years ago I knew a place locally that did HRT, they wanted 400 for the first visit and a 100 per visit after that. Normally you see them once a month for about 6 months just for the sake of taking blood levels. After that once every 2 months, then 3, then 6 ect then finally once a year. These numbers seem to be accurate to what other places want. All out of pocket.

So it's not much more than 2k the first few years actually less than 2k after the first year or so, and goes down to $1,300 a year finally.

An SRS surgery is only about 20-30k, and I can think of a ton of more "routine" surgeries easily being that. Usually insurance covers most of a "normal" surgery's cost... so people don't realize how expensive their health care often is.

Source: Grew up with multiple family in the medical field + research into transgender healtcare costs.

I've actually noticed a lot of MtF go into service for some odd reason. Many transition after service.

Honestly if there is any objection, it's that the military generally doesn't want people on any medication when in the service which from my understanding is because they can't always provide it if your in some kind of deployment or don't want people who can't function optimally without it. Or at least that's what I was told when I tried to get into the Navy years ago. But no one seems smart enough to argue that. Maybe someone else with service that is a forum user could tell us how medication was handled in their own service.

That said I don't know what the "right" answer is but there are some possible logistics involved. Until we can do ovary transplants and MtF's produce their own estrogen I don't know of a good solution to this. Many people pre-transition do just fine in the military. It would be those in transition or done with transition that need the medication that might be an issue. I read somewhere it's more that they could be working way longer (14+, 48+ hours) away from any chance to take them. With trans people there are things they can do which are once a month sometimes longer deals so maybe that wouldn't be an issue then. Without knowing the full logistical concerns I can't really comment other than it might be a potential problem, or no problem at all.

 

[tytlyf]

A lot of fake news created by TrumpCo since his election to distract from the serious russian investigation