As Congress considers reforms to private health insurance, we urge you to ensure that coverage provides meaningful access to the medications, services, and care patients need and protects them from practices that shift costs or create unnecessary barriers to treatment.
We support the adoption of stronger quality measures for HIV and viral hepatitis, including screening and treatment for hepatitis B and C, as well as a more accurate ADAP 340B calculation for the Medicare drug inflation rebate. Federal & state quality measures help ensure that health systems prioritize these key interventions.
Drug-pricing policies should be evaluated based on whether they reduce what patients pay at the point of care without undermining access to treatment or the safety-net programs on which underserved communities rely.
In order to achieve successful implementation of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS), EHE and viral hepatitis programs, resources are needed to strategically coordinate HIV and viral hepatitis activities across the federal government. We urge you to fund the HHS Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy at $7.6 million.
People with serious and complex medical conditions or special medical needs are statutorily exempt from the community engagement requirement. Federal implementation guidance due by June is expected to provide further detail on how states may implement this exemption. While we are seeking a federal exemption, under the law, states are allowed to define which populations qualify for the exemption. We urge Alaska Medicaid to explicitly state that HIV is a serious and complex medical condition and that all people living with HIV (both symptomatic and asymptomatic) have special medical needs and fall under this exemption.