Newspaper Article

Obamacare - 6 ways it can help end HIV/AIDS epidemic in U.S

Beard, Hilary

2013

Overview

Because the nation's HIV/AIDS epidemic is unfolding disproportionately in black communities, black America has the most to gain by ending it. Getting there requires that more HIV-positive people are diagnosed (currently, almost 20 percent of black people with HIV don't know it) and then linked to care, retained in care and prescribed HIV-fighting medications (called anti-retrovirals) - and, ultimately, that they get their virus under control (viral suppression), a sequence called the HIV care continuum, or HIV treatment cascade. Each step along the HIV care continuum involves going to the doctor. But while black people make up 13 percent of the population, 19 percent of us don't have health insurance, and scores of Americans - of all backgrounds - have health insurance policies that don't offer prescription coverage or aren't worth the paper they're printed on. This remains a serious problem, considering that HIV meds can easily cost upward of $12,000 per year.

• Publisher: Best Media Properties