According to HHS data, only some 13 percent of people with HIV are privately insured, and 24 percent have no coverage at all. One of the Catch-22s that has arisen with the advent of effective medication for HIV is that people face barriers to obtaining care from qualified providers because they are not “sick enough” for disability or poor enough for Medicaid and are simultaneously barred from insurance due to restrictions for those with pre-existing conditions.
Obamacare opens up avenues for them to be covered during the period, which can last decades, in which they are healthy enough to work and live normal lives. This should end the perverse incentive many face to become ‘professional patients’ by reducing their income to zero and essentially becoming wards of the state given that many care programs exist for the indigent.
‘It will prolong life potentially by decades for literally hundreds of thousands of persons’, said the National Minority AIDS Council in its brief in support of Obamacare to the Supreme Court.
1 comment:
Sadly, a lot of people are not even aware that registration for Obamacare has begun - even though in dire need of it. I know personally of a story along these lines, and can imagine perhaps millions of others in the same boat among the uninsured.
LC
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