In This Issue

Today is World AIDS Day, a day when people worldwide to come together to fight HIV, support people living with virus and remember those who have lost their lives.

In the almost 35 years since the virus was discovered, many scientific advances have taken place in how we fight HIV/AIDS. Over the past several years, we've added many lifesaving tools to our biomedical toolkit. Pre-exposure prophylasis, or PrEP, is one of them. Today we run the first in a series of pieces intended to teach people about PrEP. We start by looking at what women need to know about PrEP, facts we encourage you to forward to your friends and loved ones. In a second story we share some very very exciting news about PrEP's effectiveness among high-risk negatives in real-world conditions.

As we move through Open Enrollment for the Health Insurance Marketplace (which runs through January 31, 2016), the Affordable Care Enrollment TA center has created an animated video and one-page fact sheet to help enrollment assisters better understand PLWHA's needs. Remember to apply before December 15, 2015 for coverage that begins January 1, 2016.

A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that millions of consumers who are enrolled in a health insurance plan through Healthcare.gov stand to pay higher rates if they stay in the same health plan next year. In fact, researchers discovered that in nearly three-quarters of counties in 36 states, the lowest-priced silver plan this year will not be the lowest priced next year. The bottom line: Be sure to shop around.

Finally a study conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania med school found that people with hepatitis C who sought prescriptions for the highly effective but pricey new drugs were significantly more likely to get turned down if they had Medicaid than if they were insured by Medicare or private commercial policies.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill