The American Health Care Act Would Harm LGBT People, People Living With HIV, and Black and Latino Americans, According to Analysis from The Fenway Institute
"This bill holds potentially devastating consequences for low-income LGBT people, people living with HIV, and Black and Latino people," said
Between 2013 and 2015, the rate of uninsurance among lesbian, gay, and bisexual people decreased from 22% to 11%. The percentage of people living with HIV who lacked any kind of health insurance coverage was 22% in 2012 and dropped to 15% in 2014.
Four provisions in the
- By 2020, the
AHCA would revise eligibility criteria for enrollment inMedicaid so that in addition to being low-income, an enrollee would also need to be disabled or a parent of dependent children. PLWH must let their disease progress to AIDS in order to meet the definition of disabled, and many low-income LGBT people are not parents. - The
AHCA would not impact anyone already enrolled inMedicaid as of 2020. But anyone who drops their coverage would need to meet the new eligibility criteria in order to re-enroll. That provision creates an incentive for low-income adults living with HIV who are not parents to decline a higher paying job with private insurance. Because their health is dependent upon affordable access to life-saving HIV medicines, the risk of not being able to re-enroll inMedicaid if they were to lose their job might not be one that is worth taking. - The
AHCA would replace the individual mandate with a continuous coverage requirement that would levy a one-year 30 percent insurance surcharge on anyone who takes more than 63 days to leave one health insurance plan for another. Healthy people who lose insurance and are unable to replace it within 63 days may opt to stay out of the insurance market until they really need it in order to avoid paying the 30% surcharge. But PLWH require access to affordable health care and medicine to remain alive. PLWH who lose their health insurance through job loss, and are unable to replace it within the 63-day window, would be forced to pay the 30% surcharge once they do obtain insurance again. - The
AHCA would prevent states from usingMedicaid funding to reimburse "prohibited entities" from providing health care.Planned Parenthood is one of the few providers of health care that meets the definition of theAHCA's "prohibited entities." The LGBT population experiences disproportionate burden related to sexual health outcomes. Gay and bisexual men, as well as transgender women, are disproportionately burdened by HIV and other STIs. Lesbian and bisexual adolescent women are at greater risk of unwanted pregnancies than heterosexual adolescent women. The sexual health and family planning services thatPlanned Parenthood offers play a role in reducing these disparities.
All of these changes would affect LGBT people of color and PLWH who are Black and Latino, in particular. Black and Latino men who have sex with men experience the highest HIV burden among all sub-populations, and transgender women of color have disproportionately high rates of HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections.
The
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/03/prweb14159593.htm
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