A GOP Health Care Plan May Ruin Our Best Chance At Ending HIV And AIDS

Before the pharmacist retrieves my prescription, she leans in and whispers: “Just so you know, it’s $1,300.” This happens almost every time, so I already have at the ready my coupon card from the drug’s manufacturer. The card provides me with $3,600 in co-pays, or about three months worth of medicine, but now I’ve run out. I’m only on the hook for $80, after which I’ll hit my $7,150 health insurance deductible for the year. Then, until January, each monthly prescription will be free for me. I swipe my credit card. Between the manufacturer-provided discounts and my private health insurance, I can afford Truvada, which blocks HIV transmission, and, most likely, I’ll be able to continue my regimen even if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. But, that won’t be the case for thousands of other at-risk people who could potentially lose coverage, meaning we may miss the best chance we’ve ever had to end the AIDS epidemic. “Universally available PrEP and treatment could end the HIV epidemic,” said Dr. Robert Grant, an AIDS clinician and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. However, the implementation still needs some work. In 2012, when the Food and Drug Administration approved Truvada for the prevention of HIV, a treatment also called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), it seemed like a watershed moment. The pill is taken once a day, has comparatively mild side effects, requires only routine ...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news