Rising Costs of HIV Treatment and other medication needed just to live

What would you do if all of a sudden there were no more ADAP/HDAP or Ryan White?

David Moorman

10/02/2016

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So I received my 2017 Formulary for covered drugs from BlueCross BlueShield on Saturday October 1^st.

Much to my surprise, well not really, a lot of drugs I am currently on have moved to different tiers for this next year. 

I decided it would be interesting to figure all the drug costs and how much I would have to pay in Co-Pays, if I did not have HDAP assistance. For those of you who do not know HDAP stands for HIV Drug Assistance Program, which is a federal funded program. You may be more familiar with the Ryan White Program, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB).

So each state gets funds to help those with HIV/AIDS who are uninsured or underinsured to help pay for medical expenses including co-pays on medication. Some states call it ADAP others call it HDAP. Anyway I get assistance through the Ryan White Program here in Oklahoma, known as HDAP.

Wow, is all I can say about what I discovered about how much the HDAP program saves me on my medications each month. Since I am disabled and I draw SSDI, I can tell you that I would NOT be able to LIVE without HDAP in my life. Once I figured up how much the co-pays would be this next year and that total is ------ a whooping ------ $1291. Yes my friends you read that correctly...

Needless to say that I would be living in the negative every month if it were left up to me to pay 

those co-pays or I would just have to do without the medications that keep this ole body going.

Now add to my frustration the horrific email I received from Republican Conservative Steve Russell this last week and you can see why I am a little more than concerned about the CUTS that are being proposed to the Ryan White Program in 2017. 

Everyone who is HIV Positive or living with AIDS should be raising HECK with their Congressmen and Senators. Well, I did that and got a response that was typical of a White Republican Conservative Congressman.

If you have not seen what the Senate and Congress are doing you need to go here and see for yourself: AIDS Budget and Appropriations Coalition

 

I am including a copy of the letter I received from Republican Conservative Steve Russell below so you can see just exactly what the CONGRESSMAN who REPRESENTS my District in OKLAHOMA thinks is a bigger priority than MEDICAL ASSISTANCE for HIV/AIDS individuals. 

Let us hope and pray that the CUTS do NOT happen to the Ryan White Program this next year. We really need to stay up to date on our governments spending so we can do whatever we need to bring attention to it and demand changes be made. If we do NOT SPEAK UP for ourselves we will see more cuts to much needed programs like Ryan White.

I am going to leave you with one final thing to really think about right now:

What if you were to wake up tomorrow and find out that their will be NO MORE ADAP/HDAP or RYAN WHITE PROGRAMS? Are you prepared to pay for ALL the HIV medication and other medications co-pays without it?

Now I want you to take the time to copy this letter AIDSBudget and Appropriations Coalition and send it to your Congressmen and Senators and let's WORK TOGETHER to make a DIFFERENCE...

 God Bless You and thank you for reading. 

David Moorman