Navigating New Horizons

Living Affected Corporation Releases Ground Breaking Book

The Living Affected Corporation's publishing arm has released its second in-house produced periodical entitled "Our Lives, Our Stories, The Untold of Stories of Women with AIDS," featuring the personal stories of women whom participated in the organizations The Plus Club program.
According to CEO Diedra Levi, "the book became a labor of love as the we worked through the entire spectrum of the program." She continued, " the ladies shared their stories and experiences openly and honestly while discovering commonalities in their individuality." The Plus Club program which allowed women dealing with HIV and AIDS to engage socially in a safe zone designed to meet their needs. The organization concluded that many women either living affected or infected by the disease often languish in isolation as well as lacked exposure to socialization opportunities. While canvassing for participants, the organization was faced with the challenge of discovering women who felt secure and confident enough to participate.  It was the vision of the program to create a monthly social activity that included the journal writing process, assorted board games, a catered meal and a environment that encouraged further bonding. " I learned so much for my experience with these ladies of The Plus Club, " said former Program Manager Samantha Thomas. " They laid themselves before me and my colleague, open, authentic, genuine, sincere and unashamed and unafraid to tell their stories, speak their fears, and give meaning, not to their disease, but to themselves and the people in their lives that they loved." she concluded.

Indexed within the book are also local resources, allies and providers that serve the HIV/.AIDS community. Arkansas' Community Planning Group voted in December 2011 to make a bulk purchase of the book via its association to the Arkansas Department of Health to offer to other community based organizations involved in sexual health programming. As apart of their mission, the group wanted to invest in a unique prevention tool that could be used in a variety of means in numerous settings. The program began February 14, 2011 and will end with a book release event tentatively scheduled for February 3, 2012, at Pyramid Gallery and a after party at Miss Kitty's Saloon both in Little Rock. Copies of the book are available for purchase for $20. For more information contact: info@lacorponline.org or call 877-902-7HIV

The Affordable Care Act and People Living with HIV/AIDS

Leave a comment HIV Policy & Programs January 4, 2012

By Miguel Gomez, AIDS.gov Director

One of the questions I get frequently is “how is the Affordable Care Act (the health care law of 2010) helping people living with HIV/AIDS?” The short answer is: in many ways. The detailed answer is more complex, but also much more exciting.

To provide a more comprehensive answer to this important inquiry, we recently worked with our colleagues in the HHS Office of Health Reform to update a fact sheet about how the Affordable Care Act is particularly important for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs), as well as other people living with serious medical conditions. The Affordable Care Act puts in place strong consumer protections, provides new coverage options and gives you the tools you need to make informed choices about your health. Among the ways the ACA is helping PLWHAs are the following:

• Ensuring that AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) benefits are now considered as contributions toward a Medicare beneficiary’s true Out of Pocket Spending Limit for drug coverage, a huge relief for low-income beneficiaries living with HIV and AIDS because it helps them move through the “donut hole” more quickly;

• Improving access to coverage and protecting people with HIV/AIDS now by making available a Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan in every state and making important insurance reforms to protect people from insurance company abuses;

• Offering quality coverage to every person with HIV/AIDS in 2014 and beyond via Medicaid expansion, additional insurance reforms, and closing the “Donut Hole;”

• Ensuring people have quality care, good insurance coverage, and the information they need to find it; and

• Increasing opportunities for health, well-being, and cultural competency.

As HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius observed in her World AIDS Day statement last month, so many of our current HIV/AIDS efforts “build on a foundation laid by the health care law, the Affordable Care Act, which dramatically expands access to coverage for people with HIV/AIDS. The law also bans the worst insurance abuses so that insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to people with HIV and other conditions or cancel coverage when someone gets sick or makes an error on a form. Under the health care law, we’re also expanding Medicaid so that it will be available to many more Americans with HIV/AIDS, including single adults.”
Learn more details in the fact sheet (PDF 33KB) about what the health care law does to help people with HIV/AIDS.