Advocates: Medicaid carve out will harm Black New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS
ALBANY — Health advocates gathered Monday morning on National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day to urge Gov. Kathy Hochul to repeal the Medicaid prescription drug carve out.
The carve out, which was championed by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his Medicaid Redesign Team II prior to the pandemic, would result in $2.5 billion in cuts to the state’s Medicaid program. Set to be implemented in 2023, advocates are concerned that the cuts will hurt the state’s 340B program, which sells prescription drugs at a reduced price to safety net providers such as community health centers, who in turn provide services such as housing, mental health and nutrition assistance to low-income residents.
“The 340B funding program is here to enable providers that serve vulnerable persons to reinvest savings, to stretch scarce federal resources as far as possible,” said Omari Edwards, associate executive director of programs at the Albany Damien Center, which provides non-medical safety net services for people living with and affected by HIV and AIDS.
Advocates Monday focused the press conference on the impact this carve out would have on Black New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS, the medication for which constitutes a large part of the 340B program. In addition to Monday's press conference, dozens of safety net providers signed on to a letter to Hochul Monday that urged her to repeal the carve out, adding that repealing it would advance her stated goal to end AIDS in New York by 2024.
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