Health Insurance and being gay

[kvsb86]

Hey all,

I suppose this thread is aimed at gays in the UK (not sure if laws in the rest of the world are the same), basically just been a little worried about what effects there are when insurance companies know that a policy holder is gay.

I'd heard a lot in uni last year about Hepatitis B being a big problem in the gay community - so I went to my local GP to get a vaccine. I've always really liked and trusted my GP, she was one of the first people I came out to, so it seemed like the best thing to do. But now one of my friends has told me that I should have got the vaccine at a Sexual Health Clinic where I would have been completely anonymous, because my GP will likely put down in my medical records that I requested a Hep B vaccine because of my "lifestyle choices" or something like that, and if I were ever to get health insurance in the future, this will affect the premium or something. Does anyone know if this is likely to happen? I'm not planning on getting health insurance in the near future or anything, but I do wish I'd just gone to a sexual health clinic now.

 

[midlifebear]

I'm an uninsured 'Mericuhn who lives abroad. However, the countries I live in 1) offer inexpensive health care (Argentina/Uruguay/Chile, or 2) I'm covered as a tax-paying legal resident by the national health care (Spain).

Being gay has not had an impact on my health care outside the USA. But it has had a major impact on being able to afford health care in the USA. Many LPSG-ers will say, "There he goes again, bashing the USA." But the truth is no private health insurance or HMO is terribly interested in having a middle-age gay man as a customer. They'd love for me to pay the premiums, but it's doubtful they would actually make much of a dent in the case of catastrophic health crisis (cancer, open-heart surgery, stroke, debilitating disease), even if they coughed in what the policies I've looked at promise. Before the big Health Privacy Act thing kicked in back in the early 2000's or late 90's, anything available in the public domain regarding an 'Merichun's health is still available. I remember one day meeting with yet another GP at the HMO which was the only option an employer offered for health care, (never saw the same doctor twice), this one asshole wrote "homosexual" at the top of my chart as he asked personal questions about how many kids I had, if I was married, etc. That info is still available. Even I can get my hands on it via public health records in Ewetaw.

Your friend was right. You should have gone to a STD Clinic for those shots, regardless if you're in the UK or anywhere else in the world. STD Clinics are rather good at keeping things private, even though one of their main goals is to treat folks with STD's and track down the people that folks with STD's my have exposed. Go figure.