Cost of transition-related care for transgender troops will be minimal, report says

The cost to provide transition-related care to transgender people serving in the military will be “too low to warrant consideration in the current policy debate,” a new report published in The New England Journal of Medicine found.

Dr. Aaron Belkin, founding director of the Palm Center, a research institute that’s focused on LGBT issues, estimates the cost of offering transition-related care will amount to $5.6 million annually, or 22 cents per transgender service member per month.

“Though my utilization and cost estimates are quite close to actual data provided by an allied military force, it seems clear that under any plausible estimation method, the cost amounts to little more than a rounding error in the military’s $47.8 billion annual health care budget,” he said in his report.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced last month that the military would be lifting its ban on transgender service members. Belkin estimates there are 12,800 transgender military personnel serving now, who are eligible for transition-related healthcare, which includes gender-affirming surgery, cross-sex hormone therapy or both.

And actual cost could be lower than Belkin expects. He said transition-related care has been proven to mitigate serious conditions including those that, left untreated, impose costs on the military.

“There are costs, in other words, of not providing transition-related care, due to potential medical and psychological consequences of its denial, paired with the requirement to live a closeted life,” he said in the report.