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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Outside the Department of Health<\/a> in St. Pete<\/a> and Orlando Friday, healthcare advocates and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) protested the proposed cuts to Florida\u2019s <\/a>AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP).<\/p>\n “These are people\u2019s lives,” Ryan Franklin, a registered nurse who runs the St. Pete AHF clinic, said. “This is life or death.”<\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n Starting March 1, state officials are cutting income eligibility for the program from 400% of the federal poverty level, which is about $62,000 for one person, to 130%, which is about $21,000.<\/p>\n MORE NEWS: Hillsborough County bus aide caught on camera abusing child with autism while driver laughs: HCSO<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0“I had a patient, his husband was in my office openly weeping into my shoulder a couple of days ago because the last time that there were funding cuts, the last that his husband that was off meds, they called hospice,” Franklin said.<\/p>\n The Florida Department of Health says the cuts are to prevent a shortfall of $120 million. The cuts would also stop helping with health care premiums and stop offering one of the most popular HIV medications, Biktarvy.<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n “It’s a very real and consequential issue that we’re dealing with,” Florida\u2019s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said earlier this month, acknowledging the seriousness of the cuts. “Exponentially increasing in cost due to changes at the federal level, specifically related to the federal tax credits for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans.”<\/p>\n The tax credits expired on Dec. 31.<\/p>\n PREVIOUS STORY: Thousands to lose access to HIV drugs with new cuts<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0The AHF sued the Florida Department of Health over the proposed cuts earlier this week.<\/p>\n “What we want all in leadership throughout the state of Florida that can change this is to know that we are talking about real people’s lives,” Imara Canady, AHF\u2019s spokesperson, said. “This is not theoretical. This is not just a nice thing to do. We are talking about the lifesaving, reliant needs of real people across this state of Florida.”\u00a0<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n AHF\u2019s leaders say they want a hearing on the issue before it\u2019s too late. They say the cuts would directly impact more than 16,000 working Floridians who rely on insurance and ADAP support.<\/p>\n “Putting people before budgets is what we’re asking, asking for a hearing, asking for a real discussion,” Franklin said.<\/p>\n FOX 13 reached out to the Florida Department of Health Friday and hadn\u2019t heard back at the time this article was published.<\/p>\n The Source: Information for this story was provided by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo at a committee hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n St. Petersburg<\/a>Florida<\/a>Health Care<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Outside the Department of Health in St. Pete and Orlando Friday, healthcare advocates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[47,6584,115,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-138244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-fl","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pinellas","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news","18":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/vlcsnap-2026-01-30-18h01m42s025.png\")
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