:: TAEP'S 2008-09 Work Plan:

TAEP's health care access programs focus on both increasing the number of people receiving care and treatment, and on improving the quality of the health care received.  TAEP's work plan for 2008-09 includes the following:

	Providing education and outreach in support of the Early Treatment for HIV Act to provide early and comprehensive care through Medicaid for those living with HIV and those co-infected with HIV and hepatitis.
	Training and education on the importance of establishing a new federal health care entitlement program for all uninsured persons with HIV (and those co-infected with HIV and hepatitis) whose incomes are below 250 percent of the federal poverty level based on the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine report Public Financing and Delivery of HIV/AIDS Care.
	Building coalitions in support of passage and implementation of the National Hepatitis B Act and the Hepatitis C Epidemic Control and Prevention Act to establish, promote and support comprehensive prevention, education, research and medical management programs for viral hepatitis.
	Supporting state-based efforts to expand access to Medicaid through the creation of federally authorized waiver of Medicaid budget neutrality requirements, on public health grounds, enabling states to readily expand eligibility to low income individuals with HIV infection not yet disabled by AIDS.
	Working to establish nationwide Medicaid coverage for HIV screening in keeping with the CDC's Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing of Adults, Adolescents, and Pregnant Women in Health-Care Settings and HBV screening as recommended in the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services report Healthy People 2010.
	Training and outreach to support federal legislation or an administrative reinterpretation of the Medicare Part D statute to allow AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAP) payments to count towards the true out of pocket cost limit or "TrOOP."
	Building collaborative approaches aimed at strengthening protections for access to lifesaving medicines under Medicare Part D by promulgating regulations that require prescription drug plans to cover all drugs for the six classes of drugs that are currently protected through subregulatory guidance, including all antiretrovirals, anticonvulsants, antidepressants, antineoplastics, antipsychotics, and immunosuppressants and new drugs in these classes within 90 days of FDA approval.
	Working to ensure that federal and state health care programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, and Ryan White, do not implement policies that cause financial hardship, or create barriers to HIV or hepatitis testing or the provision of life-saving care and treatment to beneficiaries living with HIV/AIDS or hepatitis.
TAEP continues to be committed to bringing together advocates, consumers, health care providers and government leaders in support of widespread testing and early access to care and treatment for poor and low-income people living with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.