6 Days And Counting

The clock is ticking on the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a., Obamacare. Monday, March 31, marks the final day that many uninsured Americans can sign up without having to pay a financial penalty or wait until the next open enrollment period in the fall to get insurance for 2015. Only people who experience a life-changing event, such as a job loss, can sign up after March 31st. Another way of saying this is that if you don't sign up and something catastrophic happens, you're basically on your own.

In this issue we share a story about one woman—a single mother—who recently enrolled at HealthCare.gov after living for seven years without insurance. We also run the ninth and final installment in our series, "Sex, Lies and HIV," run in partnership with ProPublica. We share a report from the CDC about a likely case of female-to-female HIV transmission during a 6-month, monogamous serodiscordant relationship, so that you can help spread the word about how important it is that everyone practice safer sex. HHS recently announced that insurers must offer the same health insurance to same-sex spouses that they do for married couples. Finally we do a round-up of some HIV/AIDS awareness activities that took place early this month, during the National Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill