by Brian Winfield, Equality Florida Managing Director and Chair of the Florida Health Equity Research Institute’s Leadership Board
LGBT HealthLink, Equality Florida Institute, and lawyer Corey Prachniak are joined by over 50 partner organizations in creating and promoting the first ever LGBT Healthcare Bill of Rights (HBOR). The document, in both long form and wallet sized versions, outlines the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patients when they enter a healthcare environment.
Prachniak, Chair of LGBT HealthLink’s Steering Committee, explained the significance of HBOR: “We have more healthcare protections now than ever before, but what’s holding us back is that people don’t always know about them. This tool is intended to change that reality.”
Brian Winfield, Equality Florida Managing Director and Chair of the Florida Health Equity Research Institute’s Leadership Board, added, “Many Floridians don’t realize that the Joint Commission now prohibits anti-LGBT discrimination in virtually every hospitals in Florida and across the nation. This Bill of Rights also serves to inform doctors, nurses, administrators and insurers of their obligation to treat LGBT patients fairly and equally.”
The push to promote the HBOR by Equality Florida and LGBT HealthLink, a program of Ft. Lauderdale-based CenterLink, was timed as a lead-up to the February 15th ending of open enrollment for insurance exchanges. “Too many people don’t realize that insurance exchanges can’t discriminate against LGBT consumers,” Prachniak pointed out. “This is the type of information we need to be shouting from the rooftops.”
LGBT HealthLink’s Dr. Scout expressed hope that the new Healthcare Bill of Rights will have a long-term effect. “We know LGBT people suffer from stigma related health issues like smoking or mental health problems. We also see doctors less often, which means we have lower rates of seeking preventive care, like cancer screenings. The first step in breaking this chain is getting LGBT people in regular healthcare; we hope this tool will help many of us take that step.”
There was a clear thirst for the HBOR and Out2Enroll information among Equality Florida’s members, with 1,400 participants calling in to the February 10th Tele-Town Hall, sponsored by Equality Florida and Florida CHAIN. Winfield and Prachniak were joined by fellow panelist Athena Smith Ford, Advocacy Director for Florida CHAIN, for an hour-long discussion about navigating Obamacare and LGBT rights in a healthcare environment. Equality Florida’s CEO, Nadine Smith, emceed the extremely successful event while providing dozens of callers the opportunity to ask important questions of the panel.
To learn more and to download the HBOR, visit http://healthcarebillofrights.org/Partner/33/equality-florida .
Organizations interested in becoming HBOR partners and receiving a copy of the bill with their own branding should contact HealthLink@lgbtcenters.org.
Equality Florida Institute, Inc. is the largest civil rights organization dedicated to securing full equality for Florida’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. www.EQFL.org
List of Current HBOR Partners:
Access Matters (Philadelphia, PA) Affirmations (Detroit, MI) C.L.A.S.H. (San Francisco, CA) Campus Pride
Center for Black Equity, The
Center on Halsted (Chicago, IL)
Community Center, The (Boise, ID)
DC Center for the LGBT Community, The Equality Federation
Equality Florida Institute
Equality North Carolina
Equality Ohio
Fair Wisconsin
Fierce Pride (NM)
Gay Community Center of Richmond
Gender Expansion Project
Gender Rights Maryland
Georgia Equality
GLAAD
GLMA
Health Initiative, The (Atlanta, GA) Kalamazoo Gay and Lesbian Resource Center Lambda Legal
Los Angeles LGBT Center
Marriage Equality USA
Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center
Montrose Center, The (Houston, TX)
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Center for Transgender Equality, The
National LGBT Cancer Network, The
National LGBTQ Task Force
National Youth Pride Services
Newark LGBTQ Center
One Colorado
one*n*ten (Phoenix, AZ)
Organization for Transgender Health Empowerment Resources
Out, Proud and Healthy In Missouri
Out2Enroll
Perceptions Saginaw Valley (MI)
PFLAG
Phoenix Pride LGBT Center
Q Center (Portland, OR)
Resource Center (Dallas, TX)
Safe Schools Alliance
SAGE
Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center (NY) Trans People of Color Coalition
Transgender Law Center
Triangle Community Center (CT)
William Way LGBT Community Center (PA)
Utah Pride
LGBT HealthLink, The Network for Health Equity 