Gay rights advocates are cheering the
Supreme Court's Thursday ruling upholding the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act.
In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that
the law's individual mandate, which requires most Americans to buy
health insurance, is constitutional.
President Barack Obama called the
ruling a “victory for people all over this country whose lives will
be more secure because of this law and the Supreme Court's decision
to uphold it.”
The National Center for Lesbian Rights
(NCLR) applauded the court's decision, saying the law would “have
an enormous impact on access to high quality care for lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their families.”
“The ACA represents the largest
reform to the healthcare system in over 40 years, and the most
significant effort ever undertaken to address health disparities for
LGBT patients seeking care. The law makes a number of changes
designed to increase access to care. These changes, such as covering
preventative care and setting a new national threshold for Medicaid
eligibility, make it substantially easier for low-income people and
people with pre-existing conditions to access care, issues that are
crucially important for the LGBT community.”
The group noted that the ACA also
prioritizes issues that are crucial to LGBT people, including
granting the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) the
authority to collect demographic data for the purpose of targeting
health disparities in certain communities.
The ruling will “enable the federal
government to begin addressing the shameful disparities that lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender people face in gaining access to
healthcare,” NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell said in a
statement.
Groups representing people living with
HIV also cheered the Supreme Court's ruling.
“Tens of thousands of people living
with HIV will now have greater access to prevention, treatment and
care, including life saving drugs,” said Victor Barnes, interim
president and CEO of AIDS United.
“Other important provisions that
benefit people living with HIV/AIDS include rules that prohibit
insurers from denying coverage to people living with HIV or other
pre-existing conditions, and setting annual and lifetime caps on the
dollar value of insurance coverage.”
“The end of HIV in the United States
is in our sight,” he added. “The Supreme Court's ruling upholds
the ACA's pivotal provisions that keep us on the course that has been
outlined by the first-ever National HIV/AIDS Strategy and by the
significant treatment and prevention advances that we've seen over
the last year.”