Mayor Sam Adams' office today gave the Oregonian first crack at his new plan, up for a vote next week, to have city insurance cover sex-change procedures for city workers. Portland would join Multnomah County and the city of San Francisco in offering the coverage.

Anyway, this is the thanks the mayor's office got:

The plan, of course, is a good one. Not that you'd expect the typical O commenter to see that. As the mayor notes in his office's announcement, Nike, Google, Microsoft and IBM offer the same coverage to employees. "Covering basic, medically-necessary care is a matter of fairness, and it's the right thing to do," the mayor says in his statement.

That alone should quiet commenters. But there's also this: The added cost of adding sexual reassignment surgery to the city's coverage is expected to be $32,302 a year. It's small potatoes for such an important gesture. The city's insurance fund is projected to pay out $41.6 million in the next fiscal year.