:: ETHA - The Early Treatment of HIV Act
The Early Treatment of HIV Act (ETHA) gives states the option of readily amending their Medicaid eligibility requirements to include uninsured, pre-disabled, low-income people living with HIV. ETHA addresses a cruel irony in the Medicaid system-under current Medicaid rules, people must become disabled by AIDS before they can receive access to the care and treatment that could have prevented them from becoming so ill in the first place. ETHA would bring Medicaid eligibility in line with federal government guidelines on the standard of care for treating HIV. ETHA would also help alleviate fiscal pressures on safety net programs struggling to keep pace with overwhelming HIV care and treatment needs, including those funded by the Ryan White CARE Act .
A PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) study to assess the effects of early health care access under ETHA found that, over a ten-year period, ETHA would:
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Reduce the death rate for persons living with HIV on Medicaid by fifty percent (50%); |
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Slow disease progression and improve health outcomes, with 35,000 more individuals with CD4 counts above 500 under ETHA than under baseline Medicaid; and, |
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Decrease federal Medicaid spending by nearly $32 million. |
ETHA has major implications for not only HIV care and treatment, but also prevention. Access to HIV therapies reduces the amount of HIV virus present in a person's bloodstream (viral load) which is a key factor in decreasing infectiousness and reducing a person's ability to transmit HIV. In fact, over the past few years several studies have demonstrated the effect of early access to care on HIV transmission and infectivity. For example, a 2004 study published in AIDS found that HIV antiretroviral therapies reduces infectiousness by 60%--confirming that early access to HIV treatment is an important HIV prevention tool.
ETHA's success depends on bipartisan support-and we need your help to secure even more co-sponsors. The more bipartisan the list of co-sponsors, the greater chance that it will obtain widespread support and that the bill will move forward. Click here for more information on TAEP's Adopt a Congressperson Campaign or contact TAEP at 240-247-1019.
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