In This Issue

Only weeks after the Republican Senate leadership failed to muster enough votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), Republicans are at it again.

Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy are hoping to rush a new bill to the floor that would gut the ACA's expanded coverage and consumer protections.

The Graham-Cassidy bill tries a new approach – essentially turning federal health funding into a block grant to the states. But the results for America's healthcare safety net would be exactly the same as the earlier bills that proved too unpopular to pass. Under the Graham-Cassidy bill, millions of Americans would lose health coverage, Medicaid would be slashed to the bone, health insurance premiums would soar, and insurers would have the right to exclude coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. The harshest effects would be felt by Black America, which has benefited the most as a result of the ACA.

As with prior bills to repeal the ACA, this one has been developed in a back room by rich white men, without the benefit of a single Congressional hearing or any of the communities who would be impacted by this plan. When it comes to Americans' access to essential healthcare, the Republican Senate leadership, it seems, has no interest in hearing from health consumers, people with chronic illnesses, doctors, nurses, hospitals or public health authorities.

The Republican Senate leadership is aiming to pass this bill before the end of the month, while only a simple majority is required. As of October 1, Senate rules will kick in that will require 60 votes to pass the bill – an impossible hurdle for the Republican leadership. In short, we are all looking at a hard deadline for the future of our health care system. If we can prevent the Graham-Cassidy bill from passing by the end of September, we can preserve the ACA!

Earlier efforts to end the ACA failed because the American public stood up and said NO. We all need to stand together and act now to prevent this latest effort threat to health care access:

• Call or e-mail your Senator: If you need help finding the names of your senators, visit: http://www.senate.gov/states/. Once you know the names of your two senators, you can find their contact information here: https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/.
• Call or e-mail your Representative: If you don't know the name of your Representative, you can find out here: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/. Once you know your Representative's name, you can contact her or him: http://www.house.gov/representatives/
• Talk about health care to your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers or church members: Urge them to become engaged in fighting what would be a historic rollback of gains for Black America. Encourage them to call their Senators and Representatives.
• Check the BAI website over the next several days: BAI will provide updates on some of the protests and demonstrations that are planned.

In this issue, we share the results of a National Institutes of Health study that found that PrEP is safe and effective among teen males, a very important population we need to protect in order to end the epidemic. We run two stories from our friends at HIV.gov containing updates on conversations that took place at the 2017 U.S. Conference on AIDS: one focuses on research on viral suppression and HIV transmission risk; the other, about combatting HIV stigma and HCV coinfection.

Finally, before this last-minute push by the GOP to repeal the ACA, five governors had been working to stabilize the insurance market. Our friends at Kaiser Health News report on that effort.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill