LGBT Healthcare In Jeopardy

The Trump administration’s proposed budget would sharply reduce global & domestic spending for HIV care & prevention as well as reduce access to Medicaid & move categories of healthcare spending such as federal investment in community healthcare centers from mandatory to discretionary spending. The education centers & special projects program are central to pioneering & evaluating innovative HIV care models that improve access to and retention in care for vulnerable populations disproportionately burdened by HIV such as gay men & transgender women & particularly gay men & transgender women of color. Sean Cahill, Director of Health Policy Research at the Fenway Institute & Director of Curriculum & Policy at the National Center for Innovation in HIV Care stated, “The proposed cuts in domestic HIV prevention & treatment would undermine the dramatic progress seen since the implementation of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. It’s impossible to overstate the deadly impact these proposals could potential have. We have been lulled into believing that HIV & AIDS is no longer a concern globally thanks to the scale up of treatment. But these advances mean nothing if you’re cut off from life-saving medicine. This budget proposes a radical rejection of the social compact that has sustained our country for half a century. It would also undermine important progress we have made in preventing & treating HIV here & in Africa. It casts our most vulnerable people aside & leaves them to fend for themselves without the resources they need to succeed. We urge Congress to reject these proposed cuts & maintain the bipartisan support that HIV prevention & treatment have traditionally received.”
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