Artists: If we act now, we can ensure people with HIV get healthcare
Healthcare issues that impact artists of all disciplines are important issues for MALC. Many us have lost friends and colleagues to HIV/AIDS. The artists and arts community in Massachusetts and in the U.S. was devastated by this disease.
Please take the time to call your Massachusetts State Representative to co-sponsor this bill (they need to sign on to it by this Friday).
How to find out who represents you:
http://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.aspx
Remember to say to the Representative and/or their staff to co-sign onto Rep. Peake’s outside budget section amendment for HIV-associated lipodystrophy.
Thank you.
Kathleen Bitetti
Artist & Cofounder of MALC
It should be intolerable in Massachusetts to have people with HIV who become suicidal, live as shut-ins, or get called “freak” or “monster” in public because they cannot get medical treatment.
We can put an end to that suffering – but we need your help today to do it.
Representative Sarah Peake has offered an Amendment to the House Budget that would ensure treatment for HIV-associated lipodystrophy, a debilitating side-effect of some HIV medications that causes disfiguring body shape changes. Treatment is currently routinely denied by the insurance industry.
Please call your State Representative today and ask him or her to co-sponsor the Budget Amendment sponsored by Rep. Peake that would help people with HIV-associated lipodystrophy get medical treatment. Rep. Peake’s budget amendment is a very important step in efforts to get this bill passed in Massachusetts.
The deadline for co-sponsorship is this Friday.
You can find and contact your Representative here:
https://malegislature.gov/People/Search or contact the General Switchboard at 617-722-2000.
Lipodystrophy harms our longest-term survivors of the HIV epidemic.
People with lipodystrophy suffer terrible physical pain; many experience such disfigurement that they stop leaving their homes; some have contemplated or committed suicide.
There are simple, cost-effective treatments for lipodystrophy. But health insurers in Massachusetts regularly deny coverage for these life-saving treatments because they improperly say they are “cosmetic.”
Please contact your representative today and ask them to support Rep. Sarah Peake’s budget amendment so we can ensure sound and compassionate health care for people with HIV.
Thank you,
Bennett Klein
AIDS Law Project Director