{"id":171246,"date":"2026-02-27T09:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T09:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171246\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T09:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T09:22:18","slug":"florida-department-of-health-cuts-thousands-of-dollars-in-funds-from-hiv-and-aids-drug-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171246\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Department of Health cuts thousands of dollars in funds from HIV and AIDS drug program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/health\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">Florida Department of Health <\/a>issued emergency rules Wednesday that will block thousands of Floridians from accessing their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/hiv-prevention-drug-lenacapavir-yeztugo-approved-fda\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">HIV medication<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Starting Sunday, the state will cut its subsidies for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/miami\/tag\/aids\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">AIDS <\/a>Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), and funds will only be available for people at or below 130% of the federal poverty level, a drop from 400%.<\/p>\n<p>The emergency rules also limit the insurance coverage of Biktarvy, a once-a-day pill that is used by 60% of the 30,000 Floridians enrolled in ADAP.<\/p>\n<p>Current federal guidelines calculate 400% of the poverty level at $62,600 a year and 130% of the poverty level making $20,345. HIV advocates say about 16,000 Floridians will be affected.<\/p>\n<p>The emergency rule comes a day before a hearing was planned between DOH and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which filed a lawsuit in January, arguing the department illegally changed the rules for eligibility.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Department spent two months cutting people off without following the law. When we took them to court, they filed an emergency rule at midnight to dodge accountability,&#8221; said Esteban Wood, AHF director of advocacy and legislative affairs.<\/p>\n<p>In January, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said the drop in coverage was because of a shortfall of $120 million in federal money, but HIV advocates say that isn&#8217;t the case.<\/p>\n<p>The emergency rules last for 90 days and can be renewed.<\/p>\n<p>The Florida House of Representatives and Senate have earmarked money in their respective budgets to cover the gap, but advocates say this would still leave Floridians without coverage for months.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The only emergency here is the one that the Department of Health is creating through their own actions,&#8221; said Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman at a press conference at the capitol on Wednesday. &#8220;The actions of Surgeon General Ladapo and the Department of Health are shameful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Department of Health issued emergency rules Wednesday that will block thousands of Floridians from accessing their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,9129,100,29,4215,571,81479,78143],"class_list":["post-171246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-house","tag-florida-legislature","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-senate","tag-health","tag-hiv-aids","tag-united-states-department-of-health-and-human-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171246","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=171246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}