Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington recently reversed their blanket policy excluding breast augmentation as a treatment for gender dysphoria, the clinical diagnosis for transgender men and women. The Office of the Insurance Commissioner found that the policy discriminated against transgender women since chest reconstruction for transgender men and cisgender women following mastectomy would be...Continue reading→

Over 204,000 comments(!) were submitted on proposed changes to the Title X program at the end of July. NoHLA commented on the grave impacts that the proposed rules would have on program effectiveness and low-income populations and urged them not to be adopted. The Department of Health & Human Services also received comments from Washington...Continue reading→

A new federal grant of $284,135 will allow the Office of the Insurance Commissioner (OIC) to evaluate if health insurers in Washington offer comprehensive and affordable health coverage for mental health and substance use disorder treatments. Under the grant, the OIC will study health plan benefit design, insurers’ policies and procedures for coverage of these...Continue reading→

For the third year in a row, the KIDS COUNT Project finds Washington State in 5th place among states for children’s health care. Kudos to the Health Coalition for Children and Youth for their many years of advocacy and to children’s health care providers across the state. Only 3% of Washington children remain uninsured –...Continue reading→

The latest threat to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a huge reduction in funding for navigators in states using the federal marketplace. These are local people who help individuals and their families enroll in Medicaid and Exchange coverage. We didn’t call it huge for nothing – navigators have been cut 84% since 2016(!).Fortunately, Washington...Continue reading→