New Government Factsheet on LGBTs : Health Care Reform

Feds Release Factsheet on LGBTs and Health Care Reform

Face it, health care reform a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act, is complicated! I don’t think anyone’s an expert on all of it, and it takes a magician to figure out what this means for LGBT folk. (Thanks though to many stalwarts such as Kellan over at the National Coalition for LGBT Health that are really working hard to untangle it.) So, I’m hugely happy the feds have helped us out and put out a new factsheet about it, The Affordable Care Act and LGBT Americans.

It’s short enough to read directly, but I’ll outline the sections and note a few highlights here.

Factsheet Topics & My Two Favorite Sentences

• New coverage options
• New patient protections
• Preventative care for better health – including my favorite paragraph talking about how the feds are rolling out millions of dollars for tobacco control, nutrition, exercise, & HIV work and if I may quote: “The Department of Health and Human Services intends to work with community centers serving the LGBT community to ensure the deployment of proven prevention strategies.” Yes!! Ok, well I’d bet they really meant to say they wanted to work with all local LGBT groups, but hey Terry and all y’all over at CenterLink, isn’t this cool? And remember, we’re running a webinar with CenterLink and the Equality Federation this coming Monday Jan 31st, details here.
• Improving Care and Fighting Disparities – includes my second favorite sentence: “And through increased research and data collection on health disparities, policymakers will have the knowledge and tools they need to continue to target resources to LGBT communities.” Right on! Collect data on us puhlease!
• Small business tax credits
• HIV/AIDS