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Comment by throwaway1115 | Hacker News Reader

An anecdote:

Me and my wife live in Canada, with universal healthcare, and pay around 250k in taxes annually.

We also have fertility problem. Our treatment costed over 100k so far and (yes, $100,000), all out of pocket. Worse that that, for some treatment (egg donation) we had to go abroad because laws in Canada prevent it! Somewhere I read 10% of families struggle with similar problem, and I'm sure many are not as lucky as me to have the means to spend this much.

After spending so much, we finally could have our first child. But it's really hard to continue for the second one. The main problem is cost and traveling abroad.

At the same time, I see govt spend so much effort for LGBTQ gender change and similar treatments.

With such upside down policies, news like this is no surprise at all.

Im liberal in most policies, but this in and of itself is enough to vote against liberals/dems.

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So are you wanting to vote against transgender healthcare? Or against universal healthcare as a whole?

Wouldn’t it be better to vote *for* additional rights rather than *against* someone being helped?

Rising tide vs bucket of crabs, after all.

These kinds of people dont think rationally

rationally, budgets are constrained. any process that increases the number of potential tax payers is good. reassignment surgeries are elective, those receiving them do not pay more taxes, so priority should be given to fertility treatments.

Gender affirming care, including surgeries, increases the quality of life of transgender individuals, which can help make them more productive and even patriotic members of society and which can encourage other transgender individuals and those that believe in transgender rights into the country, potentially overall improving overall throughput and profit and taxes to pay for it all.

In the ideal world there would be resources enough for everything.

But that's never gonna happen. Funding for Healthcare is limited. There can't be a truly universal healthcare.

Now on one hand you have infertility, leading to more than 10% of families struggling. This makes two members of a family struggle mentally. Also the lack of child will have societal impact (economical cultural etc).

On the other hand you have elective gender reassignment. It certainly impacts the quality of life of the person receiving it, but that's it.

Note that we are not talking about a homosexual couple trying to have a child. No. Right now the ocncern is gender reassignment for under aged children! Whether school should inform parents or not! In what universe this can have higher priority?

That is certainly the rherotic that proponents of these interventions would like others to believe, but reality differs.

See for example:

- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/belgian-man-...

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk7NX7iPr9k

- https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5079802/chloe-cole-opening-st...

Are you saying you think the Canadian government should pay more toward fertility and less toward LGBTQ procedures such as gender reassignment? I wonder how much money the latter costs. Seems like it wouldn't be as big a cost vs fertility treatments being covered.

I'm saying if problems such as the one mentioned in this article was the priority of the governments, they would allocate funds differently.

As to which one is more costly, I don't think if either of them is "really cheap therefore negligible"

having children is more potential tax revenue for the government, should be priority for all governments.

While I sympathize with your struggles to get pregnant, buying into blatant lies about me and my friends (LGBTQ+) effectively undermines the entirety of what you said. Your entire post can be summed up as, “It’s incredibly expensive and difficult for us to have children, and I think it’s better that the government hurt others instead of helping us.”

And at that point, you lost my sympathy, because the attitudes of the parents are far too easily transferred down to their children. I really hope you rethink your argument in favor of improving treatment for everyone as opposed to reducing treatment for others, medical or otherwise.

I'm not looking for your sympathy. I'm looking for my tax dollars to be spent more wisely.

The fact you think there can be enough for "everything" shows how far from reality you are. I hope that mentality dies and you start to understand there always priorities.

Blame your provincial government, it is their decision what gets covered or not. I doubt you're living in the Maritimes, so maybe check first before blaming the Liberals for this. FYI in Quebec, IVF is covered so it's not an impossible feat either.

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