ORONO, Maine — An investigator has recommended the Maine Human Rights Commission find that the University of Maine System discriminated against a transgender student when it offered her a student health insurance plan that ruled gender-affirming surgery as cosmetic and therefore did not cover the procedure.
The student, from a rural midcoast Maine community, filed the complaint on Oct. 28, 2020, alleging discrimination beginning Aug. 1, 2019.
The UMS requires that all students enroll in the student health insurance plan or demonstrate proof of comparable coverage, the complaint states. An unnamed nonprofit healthcare advocacy organization has since filed an appeal challenging the denial of coverage, and a state-contracted entity has recommended the denial of coverage be overturned, she reported.
The student underwent chondrolaryngoplasty -- the reduction of tracheal cartilage -- and voice feminization surgery in August 2019, investigator Courtney Burne wrote. Three months later the insurance company approved coverage for the former but denied the latter.
The policy classified certain gender-affirming care procedures, including chondrolaryngoplasty and voice feminization surgery, as "cosmetic" and therefore not "medically necessary" and deemed them not covered.
On May 31, 2021, seven months after the discrimination complaint was filed, the UMS policy began covering voice modification surgery. Burne reported the UMS said the change was unrelated to the complaint and instead due to student feedback about the cost and affordability of the plan.
The UMS denied the complaint, arguing the health insurance plan is optional and that the UMS had no control over how the insurance provider classified the procedure.
Burne recommended the commission find reasonable grounds to believe the UMS discriminated on the basis of sex and sexual orientation or gender identity.
According to Burne's report, the criteria the UMS said it bases its annual choice of policy on -- price, unlimited coverage of athletic accidents, and coverage of student health center -- "is not nondiscriminatory," noting the system chose a plan "that denied coverage to an entire population of students on the basis of gender identity and continued to select that insurance plan despite knowing that the plan did so."
Burne reported the UMS risk manager acknowledged that the UMS could have requested that specific procedures be covered in the plan but, even after the student's mother raised concerns about the policy being discriminatory, the UMS selected a plan that denied coverage for numerous gender-affirming procedures.
"Despite knowing for two years that the SHIP did not offer equitable coverage for a transgender student, in academic year 2021-2022, Respondent offered the same SHIP on a voluntary basis," she wrote.
The University of Maine Systems has appealed the decision and will appear before the commission on Nov. 7, UMS spokesperson Margaret Nagle said Tuesday. She said UMSP does not comment on pending investigations.
The Maine Human Rights Commission meets Monday, Nov. 7.
