PREMIUM PALS: BUTTIGIEG TO FUNDRAISE FOR TBT AFTER BOTH BACKED TRANS INSURANCE MANDATES

Former Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is returning to Reno to help Teresa Benitez-Thompson raise campaign cash, putting one of their most expensive shared policy positions back in the spotlight: using government to make health insurers cover gender-transition treatments and leaving consumers and taxpayers to absorb the cost.

Buttigieg is scheduled to appear with Benitez-Thompson and Democratic lieutenant governor nominee Sandra Jauregui at an August 15 fundraiser billed as “Local Brews + National Views,” according to The Nevada Independent’s presidential-candidate visit tracker and a report from Mini Racker.

Benitez-Thompson, a former Nevada Assembly majority leader and current chief of staff to Attorney General Aaron Ford, is the Democratic nominee against retired Air Force Lt. Col. David Flippo in Nevada’s open 2nd Congressional District.

Flippo quickly highlighted the policy alignment behind the fundraiser.

“Benitez-Thompson and Pete Buttigieg both support forcing insurance companies to pay for trans sex change operations — raising insurance costs! THESE PEOPLE ARE CRAZY!” Flippo wrote.

In 2017, Benitez-Thompson was a listed co-sponsor of Assembly Bill 408, a sweeping attempt to lock major elements of Obamacare into Nevada law if federal rules were repealed or weakened.

The bill prohibited health insurers from refusing coverage or discriminating against a person based on gender identity or expression. It specifically barred insurers from denying a benefit available to similarly situated policyholders, limiting a claim or imposing an additional premium, deductible, copay or coinsurance on that basis.

AB 408 preserved an insurer’s ability to determine whether a treatment was medically necessary. It did not contain a sentence ordering plans to cover every conceivable transition procedure.

But the purpose and practical reach of the provision were hardly a mystery.

In testimony supporting the bill, the Transgender Allies Group told lawmakers that private plans had used transgender-specific exclusions to deny “transition-related care” and urged Nevada to preserve federal rules barring those exclusions. In practice, the proposal would have prevented an insurer from rejecting a covered procedure merely because it was performed as part of a gender transition.

That placed Benitez-Thompson behind a state insurance mandate reaching transition-related medical care, including qualifying surgical procedures, years before she began campaigning for Congress as an affordability crusader.

Then-Gov. Brian Sandoval vetoed AB 408 after warning that the legislation could leave health plans with less flexibility and risk “possibly (and dramatically) raising costs for both consumers and the State.” His veto message also warned that the bill exposed Nevada to significant financial liability.

Sandoval’s warning applied to the entire 77-page bill, which contained numerous coverage mandates beyond its gender-identity language. The legislative record does not provide an actuarial estimate isolating the premium effect of transition-related coverage alone.

That distinction matters, but it does not make the mandate free.

Insurance companies pay claims with money collected from policyholders and employers. When government expands the services a plan must cover, any additional claims costs are ultimately spread across that insurance pool or shifted to taxpayers through public plans.

The official local-government fiscal note reflected that uncertainty. White Pine County School District warned that legislation changing health coverage would affect health care costs and employer-paid insurance, although it could not determine the amount. Carson City also anticipated a fiscal impact it could not quantify.

The Nevada Division of Insurance reported no fiscal impact to the agency itself, while several local governments said they expected no immediate hit because their plans were already complying with federal Obamacare rules. Those findings addressed government budgets under the law then in effect; they were not a promise that permanently locking additional benefits into state law would never affect premiums.

Benitez-Thompson supported the bill anyway. Sandoval’s veto stopped it from becoming law.

Buttigieg’s record makes him a fitting fundraising partner.

During his 2020 presidential campaign, Buttigieg proposed requiring health insurance companies to cover gender-affirming medical treatments. At a Nevada Planned Parenthood event, he was asked how he would remove barriers to gender-confirmation surgery and promised to guarantee access for transgender Americans, including federal workers, military personnel and incarcerated individuals.

“This is not a luxury, this is medicine, this is health care,” Buttigieg said.

His campaign’s broader women’s agenda likewise called for making private insurers cover the cost of gender-affirming treatment for transgender women.

Now he is bringing that record to Reno to help finance Benitez-Thompson, whose own legislative history shows she was already pushing the same government-directed insurance policy in Nevada.

Benitez-Thompson’s campaign website declares that making daily life more affordable would be her “number one job” in Congress and says health care should be “as accessible and inexpensive as possible.”

Her record raises a straightforward question: inexpensive for whom?

The procedures do not become free because lawmakers order an insurer to cover them. The bill simply moves the charge from the individual receiving the treatment to a larger pool of policyholders, employers and taxpayers.

Benitez-Thompson’s current health care platform does not say whether she would support a federal version of the insurance rules she co-sponsored in Nevada. It also does not explain how she would prevent additional mandates from increasing premiums or public-plan costs.

Democrats are billing the Buttigieg event as “Local Brews + National Views.” Northern Nevada families may see the tab differently: national ideology, local premiums.

Speak Up, Nevada! What’s on Your Mind? Send us your opinion!

Got the inside scoop on something happening in Nevada? Or the country? Do you have thoughts about life in Nevada that are too good to keep to yourself? Whether it’s a hot take on our politics, crime, education, or even the secret to surviving our summers, we’re all ears! Swing them our way at editor@thenevadaglobe.com. Come on, give us the scoop on what makes Nevada tick—or what ticks you off. Let’s make some noise and have some fun with it!