The federal government has directed nearly all health insurance providers to cover the cost of HIV prevention pills, commonly known as PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis), as well as clinic visits and lab tests.
People taking Truvada or Descovy, the two most common PrEP medications, will no longer have to pay anything out of pocket for their prescriptions, which can cost nearly $2,000 a month at list price.
The new mandates forbid insurers from charging copays, coinsurance or deductible payments for the quarterly clinic visits and lab tests that are needed to have a PrEP prescription.
Studies have shown that PrEP reduces a man’s risk of contracting HIV from sex with another man by more than 99 percent.
People need to be more aware/doctors need to do better at warning people about potential side effects of this drug. I went to a neurologist last year (who was also gay man) who advised me to stop taking it.
Wait a minute, what happened to all the class action lawsuits against Gilead (maker of Truvada) for the issues caused by Truvada? Is Uncle Joe Biden’s administration going to use Merrick Garland to argue against those lawsuits?
Finally!
This is reason to celebrate! 🤍
This is great. And Truvada is off patent, as of January. So it theoretically should not cost insurers that much.
I was one of the first people on PrEP, after it was approved by the FDA. I remember have discussions on this very site, regarding AHF’s awful tactics of stigmatizing it, and Michael Weintstein calling it a “party drug.”
I’m glad to see that we have come a long way since then.
Thanks for Randy for being one of the people to lead the way.