Testimony, Comments, & Letters

Patient groups letter urging the Biden administration to oppose extending the TRIPS waiver

On behalf of patients battling illnesses such as cancer, HIV, diabetes, genetic disorders, and antibiotic-resistant infections, we write to convey our profound opposition to recent actions supported by the Biden administration regarding intellectual property (IP) protections and express our concerns with potential actions that may further erode IP protections that are necessary to produce lifesaving medicines.

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Patient Groups letter on updating SAMHSA HIV block grant criteria for states

The undersigned 39 organizations of the AIDS Budget and Appropriations Coalition (ABAC), a workgroup of the Federal AIDS Policy Partnership (FAPP), write to request inclusion of critical language in the final FY2023 Labor, HHS Appropriations bill that is necessary to expand our efforts to end the HIV epidemic in the U.S. As you work to finalize the bill, while ABAC continues to advocate for our coalition’s FY2023 funding requests, we urge you to include language that would modernize the way in which states qualify to be eligible for the HIV set-aside of the Substance Abuse Block Grant (SABG).

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71 patient groups comment on nondiscrimination rule in healthcare

We, the undersigned 71 organizations, on behalf of millions of patients and American consumers who live with complex conditions such as HIV, autoimmune diseases, cancer, diabetes, lupus, hemophilia, mental illness, hepatitis, and neurological conditions write to comment on the Proposed Rulemaking for ACA Section 1557 Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities. As detailed below, we are extremely pleased that you have taken meaningful steps to improve upon current regulations to ensure that people are not discriminated against in healthcare. In several instances, you have proposed to restore protections that had been included in the past but later withdrawn.  In other instances, you have provided further clarity on what constitutes discrimination.  In any instance, we emphasize that the law and whatever is finalized in regulation must be strictly enforced.

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HIV/AIDS groups letter in support of MassHealth making injectable long-acting PrEP available without barriers

HIV/AIDS groups are concerned that MassHealth (Massachusetts Medicaid) has not yet added cabotegravir, a new long-acting injectable form of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV, to its formulary. We urge MassHealth to make sure injectable long-acting cabotegravir as PrEP is available on formulary without any barriers to access, such as utilization management or prior authorization requirements.

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