New York governor to ban insurers from funding gay 'conversion therapy'

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

New York governor to ban insurers from funding gay 'conversion therapy'

Andrew Cuomo to announce executive action against ‘hateful and
fundamentally flawed practice’ upon receiving Human Rights Campaign award

Edward Helmore in New York
Saturday 6 February 2016 22.27 GMT

New York governor Andrew Cuomo was set on Saturday to announce a ban on public and private health insurers paying for “conversion therapy” – designed to alter sexual orientation or gender identity – and prohibiting state mental health facilities from conducting the controversial practice on minors.

The executive action, which the governor was to announce on receiving a National Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign on Saturday night, will make it illegal for any organization licensed or funded by the state to offer such “therapy”.

New York has long been at the forefront of gay rights movement, Cuomo said in a statement. He called conversion therapy a “hateful and fundamentally flawed practice that is counter to everything this state stands for”.

Conversion therapies have long been opposed by the American Psychiatric Association; a recent federal report concluded they were “inappropriate and reinforce harmful gender stereotypes”.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/06/new-york-gay-conversion-therapy-insurance-ban-andrew-cuomo

[TeddyR]

1. Does a governor have authority to ban

Any treatment? That's putting a lot of power in one person's hands.

[shenmue]

3. They should. "Gay cures" have no scientific value and drive up the suicide rate.

[TeddyR]

4. I agree that the therapy

Is not only useless but harmful. But hat doesn't mean that a governor should get to unilaterally decide what insurers do and do not cover. That is dangerous.

[Greybnk48]

2. They wouldn't pay for augury or witchcraft

why on Earth are they paying for this fundy pseudo-Christian torture?

[WillowTree]

5. I wish he would name the insurer or insurers that do cover conversion therapy.

I've never heard of such coverage or any psychiatric association that sanctions it and insurers historically won't cover any treatment that is considered to be experimental or is not sanctioned by the medical community at large. Would be interesting to know.

[dsc]

6. when I was in college I was on my parents health insurance

which refused to pay for this when I asked them to. I am glad they refused.