Aetna, an insurance company that participates in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, announced Oct. 31 that it would cover surgical gender reassignment procedures for federal workers beginning in 2015.Aetna is one of many insurance companies to cover sex-change operations in recent months. Medicare, the federal insurance program for retired and disabled individuals, announced July 2 that it will offer coverage for s...

As part of a nationwide movement urging lawmakers to preserve social programs, two protests took place outside the Kluczynski Federal Building, 230 S. Dearborn St., on Nov. 8 and 9, the latter resulting in 19 arrests.Demonstrators called on Sen. Dick Durbin to denounce policies that extend tax cuts to the wealthy and asked him to block cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.If Congress doesn’t formulate a plan t...