Mortality rates post surgery is a
thing. In a decent size hospital, you will see one post surgery death a month. Hell, even suicides post surgery is a thing
(PDF). These are known factors independently of troon genital surgery.
The comparison of death rates, to me at least, do not tell me that surgery is a significant trigger for troon suicides.
There is no study afaik that compares troons who had general surgery unrelated to genital surgery vs troons who only had genital surgery. To prove genital surgery does harm, such a study would be the smoking gun.
They might be
worthless for directly alleviating symptoms of troonism, but that frankly is outside the scope of a farm post sperg.
Circling back to the original question of "why do health insurers greenlight what appears to be pointless procedures?", one does not need to look further than
Jahi McMath, whose insurer (Medicaid, iirc) decided Jahi needed surgery rather than a CPAP machine for snoring.
Jahi was a child at the time of surgery (and subsequent brain death), presumably she would have lived to at least 65 years of age otherwise.
Medicaid did the math(lol) and figured there were 2 options:
1. A CPAP machine costing $3000 a pop every 5 years (regardless of whether Medicaid is capable of actually providing this, this is Jahi's legal entitlement) indefinitely;
2. A $10,000 one off surgery (this could be much cheaper, I am not from clapland and I do not know of Medicaid's bargaining power) .
It is obvious which comes out cheaper assuming Jahi lives to be an adult, and stays on Medicaid for her life.
A private sector insurer might consider the possibility of 3. Deny Jahi coverage and gamble on having to pay legal fees (about $20,000).
Plugging this back to troon specific arguments, a troon indefinitely on GnRH agonists and cross sex hormones has huge risks for every cancer sproutable by the overtaxed endocrine system the longer they are on hormones.
Cancer treatment is expensive
and something most health insurers cannot deny coverage for due to optics/the law. Chopping off pre-cancerous genitalia is cheaper than cancer treatment.