HIV-AIDS advocacy groups say the three insurance companies in Louisiana that offer healthcare plans under ObamaCare are rejecting payments from a federal program that was meant to assist low-income HIV patients.
According to Reuters, the Louisiana Health Cooperative and Vantage Health Plan--two smaller insurers--followed the decision of the state’s largest insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, at the end of last year to reject the payments for the HIV patients.
In response, Lambda Legal, a nonprofit group, filed a civil rights complaint with the Obama administration about the two smaller insurers’ action on Thursday, following their complaint against Louisiana Blue last week, in which they argued that the insurer’s refusal to accept Ryan White payments flouted a key provision of ObamaCare, namely its requirement that insurers must accept customers with pre-existing conditions.
“Additional carriers are jumping on the discrimination bandwagon,” Susan Sommer, director of constitutional litigation for Lambda Legal, said.
The legal nonprofit works to protect the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, and people with HIV.
“The worst nightmare for people with HIV-AIDS is coming true in Louisiana: they’re being turned away in what’s become a race to the bottom by insurers,” Sommer said.
At issue is the federal Ryan White HIV/AIDS program that, for 23 years, has made grants to states, cities, and nonprofit groups to assist low-income people with HIV in the purchase of health insurance.
The advocacy organizations assumed the federal funds could be used to purchase premiums for Ryan White beneficiaries who bought private insurance on the ObamaCare exchanges, in the same way the funds had been used to pay insurance premiums prior to President Obama’s signature healthcare reform law.
Recently, however, both Louisiana Blue and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota began rejecting Ryan White payments made on behalf of poor HIV-AIDS patients who had enrolled in a plan on the ObamaCare exchanges.
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