Lawsuit against Affordable Care Act targets PrEP
More than two dozen HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations and LGBTQ supportive health centers have filed two separate friend-of-the-court or amicus legal briefs supporting the appeal of a Texas court decision earlier this year that the advocacy groups say would greatly reduce health insurance coverage of the HIV prevention medication known as PrEP.
The two amicus briefs filed by the advocacy organizations in June express strong support for the Biden administration’s appeal of a March 30, 2023, ruling by Judge Reed O’Connor for the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of Texas. O’Connor’s ruling struck down a provision of the U.S. Affordable Care Act that requires insurers to provide full coverage of preventive care services without co-pay or cost-sharing fees, including coverage for PrEP. “As an organization representing thousands of physicians and other health care professionals working on the frontlines of the HIV epidemic in communities across the country, we are deeply concerned about the harmful and far-reaching impacts this decision will have if allowed to stand,” said Dr.
Michelle Cespedes, chair of the HIV Medicine Association, one of the groups that filed the second of the two amicus briefs opposing the court ruling. “Reinstating cost-sharing for PrEP would directly cause tens of thousands of preventable cases of HIV transmission and set back decades of progress toward curbing the epidemic,” she said in a statement.
