Cancer, HIV Preventive Care Services Will Remain as Biden Admin Finalizes Deal Between Challengers of Mandate

The Biden administration settled on a deal today where health insurers must continue to fully cover preventive care services like cancer screenings and HIV-preventing drugs. The deal, initially tentative, was announced Friday between the administration and those challenging the Affordable Care Act mandate.

While the mandate is in place, it does allow the challenger, Texas-based Braidwood Management, to stop covering pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) against HIV and other preventive services without co-pays for its employees, according to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

However, the administration remains to appeal the court order challenge from Braidwood.

Braidwood and other plaintiffs sued the mandate specifically over PrEP for HIV, which they said violated their religious beliefs by encouraging homosexuality and drug use, according to a report by Reuters.

This mandate supports the nationwide efforts of ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S.

According to the CDC, one of the many goals of the federal Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. initiative is by 2023 to have 50% of people who could benefit from PrEP use those services.

Improvements have been made in increasing PrEP use. For example, CDC data shows in 2020, about 25% of the 1.2 million people PrEP is recommended to were prescribed it compared to roughly 3% in 2015.

The increased use has played into the decrease of new infections. The CDC estimated new HIV infections fell 8% from 2015 to 2019 before COVID-19 disruptions in 2020.