Cleveland Clinic Reports 40% Drop In Charity Care After Medicaid Expansion

Cleveland Clinic

The Cleveland Clinic, one of the largest hospitals in the country, has cut its charity care spending — or the cost of free care provided to patients who can't afford to pay — to $101 million in 2014 compared with $171 million in 2013.

Health Challenges That Transgender People Face, Part 1

Monica Roberts, founding member of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition and creator of TransGriot.com

If you believe that transgender men and women are just gay people who dress in the clothing of the opposite, you have a lot to learn. Trans men—men whose gender at birth was female—and trans women—women whose gender when they were born was male—too often have faced the difficult physical, emotional and social challenges of trying to make their minds match their reproductive organs. They also experience health and social-justice challenges that extend beyond their genitalia. Discrimination, poverty, homelessness and lack of culturally sensitive care are among the factors that contribute to the health disparities that surround this population. This is the first of a two-part series on challenges that transgender men and women face.

New NIH Study to Tackle Cardiovascular Heart Disease in HIV-infected Individuals

Atherosclerosis

If you are HIV positive and on antiretroviral therapy (ART), are you doing all you can to maintain and improve your health? While early diagnosis of HIV infection and use of combination ART has significantly reduced AIDS-related mortality and morbidity in the U.S., it does not completely return you to your pre-infection health status. For instance, studies have shown that HIV-infected individuals are at a higher risk (1.5-2 times) of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD).

In This Issue

This week we publish the first of four stories of this year's Heroes in the Struggle Awardees, starting with our old friend Greg Millett, now at amfAR. (Note: a photo caption in the previous version of this issue mistakenly identifed him as still being at ONAP).

Greg Millett: Yes, Black Gay Lives Matter

Gregorio Millett, vice president and director of public policy at the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR)

The first of four profiles about the 2015 Heroes in the Struggle awardees.

While "Black lives matter" has become a rallying cry across the United States in recent months, Gregorio Millett, vice president and director of public policy at the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), is asking a different question. He wants to know whether Black gay lives matter, particularly when it comes to fighting HIV.