A plan to prevent cuts to a program that provides drugs to AIDS patients passed through the Senate on Tuesday, but it\u2019s unclear whether the House will agree to it.<\/p>\n
House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, said he hadn\u2019t made a decision on whether to support the move.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to truly study it, and I\u2019ve got to make sure I feel comfortable with that, that it\u2019s in the best interest of the state,\u201d Perez told reporters after the House adjourned Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n
The Senate amended a bill (HB 697) dealing with drug costs to include $31 million to restore eligibility to the thousands of people in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program who lost coverage on March 1.<\/p>\n
In January the Department of Health stated they would be cutting funding for ADAP, blocking over 10,000 Floridians from accessing their HIV medication.<\/p>\n
DOH cited a $120 million shortfall caused by federal funding cuts and dropped the coverage threshold from 400% of the poverty level, a yearly income of $62,600, to 130% of the poverty level, $20,345.<\/p>\n
The agency also withdrew some of the most popular medications from the formulary and stopped paying premiums for Affordable Health Care plans in March. Employer-sponsored health care plans are expected to end in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, sponsor of the bill, said he believed it was \u201cprobably\u201d in a good position to be passed in the House.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t speak for them, but I think this is something they are aware is coming,\u201d Brodeur said on the Senate floor.<\/p>\n
The move also has Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 support, legislators said. A request for comment from DeSantis\u2019 office wasn\u2019t immediately returned Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n
House and Senate leaders are deadlocked on a budget, and haven\u2019t entered formal talks, stalling any relief for those dropped from ADAP. Passing this stopgap measure in a standalone bill will help people remain eligible until a budget is passed and more money can be dedicated to the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know it\u2019s not ideal, but we\u2019re doing what we can to try to ensure that they still have access to these medications,\u201d said Sen. Carlos Guillermo-Smith, D-Orlando.<\/p>\n
After advocates for HIV-positive Floridians and public health workers warned of the dangers of potential cuts in January, Democratic and Republican lawmakers pushed to create stopgap measures to protect people from losing coverage for their medications, but nothing yet has passed.<\/p>\n
For individuals who are on Medicare or are on an employer-based health care plan, the bill will direct the agency to assist with copays, which allows the agency to apply for rebates to help offset costs.<\/p>\n
The bill also includes a requirement that DOH submit monthly accounting reports about the ADAP program to the Legislature.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Senate\u2019s proposal doesn\u2019t fix everything, but it\u2019s a good start, said Michael Rajner, an HIV positive Fort Lauderdale resident who has been advocating for legislative action since he heard of DOH\u2019s changes to ADAP.<\/p>\n
For example, Biktarvy, one of the most popular once-a-day medications, still isn\u2019t covered, and other medications will be switched to their generic versions. Rajner also wants to see health care premium assistance in the 2026-2027 budget. He believes about 6,000 people have lost coverage since March 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope we\u2019re able to get what this program was at one time, back to what it should be, so that people can really live full lives,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rajner said he stayed in Tallahassee to fight for those who didn\u2019t have the ability to travel to the capital city or didn\u2019t know how to navigate the political system. Republicans, as well as Democrats, thanked Rajner on the floor of the Senate for his advocacy.<\/p>\n
Rajner said he believes Speaker Perez understands the importance of this issue and will pass the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI trust the Speaker will do everything to move this through the House and get it to the Governor as soon as possible so that people who right now are finding themselves so vulnerable and giving up on their HIV treatment can have a sense of hope,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A plan to prevent cuts to a program that provides drugs to AIDS patients passed through the Senate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,4215,123],"class_list":["post-187290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-senate","tag-miami"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187290","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=187290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}