AHF: Florida Lawmakers Reverse HIV Drug Cuts, Restoring Coverage for Thousands
Bipartisan state budget restores AIDS Drug Assistance Program eligibility, brings back covered medications, funds the program with $75 million, and adds independent oversight
Thousands of Floridians living with HIV will keep the medication that keeps them alive, after the Florida Legislature today passed a state budget that reverses this year's cuts to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP). The budget returns eligibility to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, brings back the medications the Department of Health had dropped, including Biktarvy, funds the program with $75 million, and adds independent oversight.
"This is what it looks like when people living with HIV refuse to be abandoned and lawmakers listen. Florida came dangerously close to walking away from thousands of people living with HIV, and that cannot become a model anywhere else," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
"Treatment is how we end HIV. The health department cut it. Lawmakers gave people their lives back," said Esteban Wood, Director of Advocacy & Legislative Affairs at AHF.
