Health Barriers and Breakthroughs for LGBT People and Individuals Living With HIV/AIDS

Last week, HHS released its third annual report outlining its accomplishments over the past year and its objectives for the coming year for improving the health of LGBT individuals, families, and communities. LGBT women in particular have reason to celebrate these accomplishments, but all women benefit from initiatives that seek to end discrimination and improve health outcomes and health care access.

For example, HHS regulations and guidance requiring equal visitation rights at hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid helps not only LGBT families but also anyone who has a family joined by bonds of affection and affinity rather than legal coupled status. Likewise, the ACA’s nondiscrimination protection (section 1557) provides important protections against discrimination for women and LGBT people alike.  HHS’s focuses in the upcoming year—implementing the ACA and the June 2013 Supreme Court decision striking down a part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—have important gains for women, LGBT people, and individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

That the gains are shared by these communities is not surprising; women, LGBT individuals, and people living with HIV/AIDS face many similar obstacles to accessing health care. The ACA tears down some of these barriers: for example, the law prohibits insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions such as HIV/AIDS and provides new affordable coverage opportunities. It also includes the first broad prohibition on discrimination in health care based on sex, sex stereotypes, and gender identity.

In addition, LGBT people and individuals living with HIV/AIDS have long had unequal access to health care because providers claim that personal or religious beliefs allow them to refuse to treat these patients. Providers and institutions also interfere with women’s access to health care by asserting a right to deny patients medically appropriate health care services, information, and referrals based on the providers’ religious or personal beliefs. These refusals violate ethical standards and antidiscrimination laws: personal or religious beliefs neither exempt health care workers from complying with antidiscrimination laws, including the antidiscrimination provision of the ACA, nor allow them to interfere with any patient’s right to access medically appropriate care.

The National Women’s Law Center created two factsheets highlighting these two areas of common cause: the harm of health care refusals and the how the ACA will improve access to health care for LGBT individuals and people living with HIV/AIDS. Take a look to learn more!