TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress Health Care is a Human Right

The move to reform health care in the United States must ensure that everyone living with HIV benefits from early and reliable access to lifesaving care and treatment. Coordinated action by our entire community is needed to make sure Congress knows how important these three core provisions are for all of us:

1.      Expanding Medicaid for all low-income people, including childless adults, by eliminating current requirements that tie Medicaid to disability status. This would give approximately 42% of all people living with HIV who are currently uninsured immediate access to health care through Medicaid.

2.      Including Early Treatment for HIV Act (ETHA) language which gives states the option to expand Medicaid access to low-income people living with HIV whose incomes are above established Medicaid income eligibility rules. This will give states the option to expand coverage for people living with HIV/AIDS, reaching more than 75% who are currently uninsured.

3.      Including a high-quality, affordable public health insurance plan that sets a uniform standard for benefits coverage and across the nation to help provide access to comprehensive care for people HIV - nearly 30 percent of whom have no insurance. This would offer a national standard for coverage and greater dependability, consistency and security for people with HIV than private plans, which can charge higher prices and/or close, merge or change benefits at will.

All three of these priorities are crucial to ensure the best possible expansion of care and treatment for people with HIV/AIDS and must be part of any final health care reform package.

Decisions are being made quickly and Congress needs to hear directly from people who are most impacted by this legislation. Please take a minute to fax your senators today!

For more information:

Go to www.taepusa.org  for background information and analyses of various health care reform proposals and the impact on people with HIV/AIDS.

The HIV Health Care Access Working Group is hosting regular conference calls to update the community about health care reform efforts and how people can get involved. All are invited to participate. The calls are the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month at 1:00 p.m. To join the call, dial 218-339-2699 and enter access code 968918.