Health Insured?

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Health Insured?

POZ (12/95-01/96) No. 11, P. 28
Hanssens, Catherine

There are numerous legal issues which can arise for an HIV- infected person seeking, or trying to keep, private health insurance. Currently, employers and insurers are in court, attempting to limit the Americans with Disabilities Act's (ADA's) protections against insurance discrimination. Both the ADA's and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) guidelines state that employer-provided health benefits are included in the "terms, conditions, and privileges of employment" under which employers cannot single out HIV patients for separate treatment. Since the enactment of the ADA, the EEOC has successfully pursued several cases of employer-provided health benefit plans with AIDS limits. The ADA also enables advocates to argue that plans which do not cover only AIDS care are in violation of the law's protection against discrimination in public accommodations. A New England federal appeals court ruled in 1994 that the ADA's public accommodations protections are not restricted to actual physical structures, but federal courts in Ohio and Tennessee have reached opposite conclusions this year.

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