If you thought Starbucks coffee was overpriced before…just wait ’til you start paying for their employee’s transgender and cosmetic surgeries…
According to their website, Starbucks new health benefits plan will now include faces feminization and electrolysis.
After a year of working in tandem with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), Starbucks has announced a new benefits package that offers extensive coverage to trans employees.
https://twitter.com/kitchen_inn/status/1015987670282067969
The coffee company has included coverage for gender-reassignment surgeries in its employee health plan since 2012. But now, a six-page document titled Starbucks Transgender Medical Benefits, described in a post on the company’s website lists lifetime coverage for everything from hair graft and voice therapy to facial feminization and breast augmentation — services considered vital for transgender healthcare but often listed as ‘cosmetic’ and not covered by health insurance. –them.us
Starbucks health insurance plans include not only gender reassignment surgery (which had been covered since 2012), but now also a host of procedures for transgender partners in the U.S. that were previously considered cosmetic, and therefore not covered, such as breast reduction or augmentation surgery, facial feminization, hair transplants and more.
“The approach was driven not just by the company’s desire to provide truly inclusive coverage, and by powerful conversations with transgender partners about how those benefits would allow them to truly be who they are,” said Ron Crawford, vice president of benefits at Starbucks.
“It makes trans people feel like they are people,” said Buhrmester, “like they matter and their health matters.”
Crawford said it’s simply the right thing to do. “I view this as a diagnosis with a treatment path,” he said. “You have to think of it from an equity perspective.”
To shape the new benefits, he and Alyssa Brock, benefits director, reached out last year to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
Starbucks was the first company in the world to ask WPATH to help translate their recommended standards of care into a medical benefits policy, said Jamison Green, the immediate past president of WPATH, who worked with the company on the benefits package.
“Starbucks was not afraid to ask all the right questions and demand that people get the best possible care,” said Green. “We produced a list of the most crucial benefits and those that are deemed problematic to insurance companies, such as facial feminization and electrolysis.”
Many procedures considered cosmetic aren’t optional for trans people, Green said, but are essential in their quest to be who they are. Something like electrolysis can be “a life-saving procedure for trans women,” he said.
“Last year, as a result of conversations with transgender partners who provided their feedback, Starbucks took a fresh look at the health care benefits in order to see where we could improve,” said a Starbucks spokesperson in an email to them. on Tuesday. Starbucks refers to its employees as partners.
This isn’t the first time Starbucks has pandered to the transgender community. In 2014, they actually created an ad that catered to the transgender/gay community. The 2014 ad attempts to prove that Starbucks coffee makes everyone get along.
Watch:
