‘Tremendous’ costs? US military spends five times more on Viagra than on transgender care
High-end estimate of transgender medical costs represent about 0.00001 of US military budget
On Twitter Wednesday morning US President Donald Trump announced a ban on transgender people serving in the military, citing “medical costs” as the primary driver of the decision.
“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail,” the president wrote.
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 service members among the active duty military and the typical health care costs for gender transition-related medical treatment, the Rand study estimated that these treatments cost the military between US$2.4 million and US$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.