Obamacare Is the Most Important Piece of Gay Rights Legislation Ever Passed

Slate ^ | 30 May 2014 | Mark Joseph Stern

[Lorianne]

Given the myriad boons to gay rights we’ve seen this decade, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the Affordable Care Act is brimming with new regulations that directly benefit LGBTQ Americans. Indeed, I consider it to be one of the most important pieces of gay rights legislation ever passed.

new story out of Florida further confirms my suspicion. The Huffington Post reports that two Florida insurance companies are under fire for discriminating against patients with HIV, slapping them with a 40 percent co-pay on each of their HIV drugs, plus a $1,000 deductible per drug per month. (The new regulations limit co-pays to $10, though insurance companies have long endeavored to work around that restriction.) Given the complex cocktail of drugs HIV patients must take, this would quickly bankrupt many patients—and often did in the dark days before Obamacare. Back then, people with HIV were lucky to have insurance at all; the virus was considered a pre-existing condition, and HIV-positive people were frequently denied coverage or dropped from their plans without warning. (Federal programs were left to pick up the slack.) Those with insurance regularly bumped against lifetime and annual limits. Thanks to the ACA, all of that is forbidden. And since HIV still disproportionately targets gay Americans, these regulations translate into a huge gift to the community.

[Lorianne]

Is it just me or does it seem that LBGT people in this article are all assumed to already have or will get HIV and this is just taken for granted.

Even hereditary diseases do not strike everyone in the hereditary line, even smokers don't always get cancer, but the gist of this is that all LGBT people will get HIV

Seems very odd

[Cowboy Bob]

And since HIV still disproportionately targets gay Americans, these regulations translate into a huge gift to the community.

So, HIV discriminates against Gay people?

[jeffc]

...two Florida insurance companies are under fire for discriminating against patients with HIV, slapping them with a 40 percent co-pay on each of their HIV drugs, plus a $1,000 deductible per drug per month.

Statistics prove the relevance of charging them more, for the risk they take. OTOH, if you have good credit, you can get a better rate, even though your credit rating has nothing to do with risk.

[Don Corleone]

Bathhouse Barry telling it like it is?

[Iron Munro]

And since HIV still disproportionately targets gay Americans, these regulations translate into a huge gift to the community.

So, HIV discriminates against Gay people?

Obama has a plan to correct that.

Soon he will sign an executive order making it mandatory for everyone past the age of puberty to engage in homosexual sex with a known HIV carrier.

That way he will no longer be a member of a sexual minority group.

(now that I think of it, Obama does look like he might be in the early stages of AIDS himself, doesn't he?)

[RedMDer]

FReepathon day 62, Month #3.
Don't let the Left win!


Woo hoo!! Less than $4.7k to go!! Time to put this baby to bed!!
Thank you all very much!

[a fool in paradise]

Why should bug chasers who DELIBERATELY seek out infection be covered by others?

[a fool in paradise]

They don’t need to play up the sexual relations angle, homosexualists are pushing to taint the blood supply as donors. Presently they are still banned.

[a fool in paradise]

The 30 year myth of a wave of heterosexual AIDS never has come to pass.

[CrazyIvan]

So if we 2nd amendment supporters were as irresponsible with guns as gays are with their genitals we would not be liable for a disproportionate number of gunshot wounds? It's just an alternate lifestyle.

[VerySadAmerican]

I’d like to know WHY is gay rights so important to these people? Some people are falling on their swords for gays and will be voted out of their perky positions.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

From the Centers for Disease Control:

* In 2011, in the United States, gay and bisexual men accounted for 79% of 38,825 estimated HIV diagnoses among all males aged 13 years and older and 62% of 49,273 estimated diagnoses among all persons receiving an HIV diagnosis that year.

* At the end of 2010, of the estimated 872,990 persons living with an HIV diagnosis, 440,408 (50%) were gay and bisexual men. Forty-seven percent of gay and bisexual men living with an HIV diagnosis were white, 31% were black/African American, and 19% were Hispanic/Latino.

When you consider that “gay” men comprise under 3% of the male population, that means that “gay” men are at least 130 times as likely to contract HIV as heterosexual men.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/gender/msm/facts/index.html

[Eddie01]

I’m moving to a remote town in northern Italy to live out my life as an artist.

No TV, no internet, no radio, just a carbon fiber race bike (Wilier Zero 7 w/Campy Record 11) and my imagination.