My name is Robert Williams. I am an HIV-positive person living in Los Angeles and I want to change a policy I believe to be bad for the public health and especially bad for persons with a weakened immune system.  Insurance companies are refusing to cover Meningitis vaccinations and penicillin used to treat bacterial infections like Syphilis.  

Treatment for Syphilis is 3 shots of penicillin given over a 3 week period and can cost the patient up to $600 and the meningitis vaccination regimen can cost $400. Both diseases are highly contagious and currently Los Angeles is in the middle of a deadly Meningitis outbreak. 

The Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to cover vaccines yet the vaccine is not being covered. Insurance companies are exploiting a loop hole by only covering certain vaccines under medical plans (dispensed and administered at the doctors office) and excluding them under pharmacy plans (if dispensed by a pharmacist). Increasingly doctors offices are not stocking injectables like penicillin and the Meningitis vaccines because insurance companies reimburse less than what the doctor has to pay. Instead the doctor writes a prescription. The patient then has to pay the pharmacy out of pocket for the treatment.  

Insured patients who cannot afford the excluded medications are less likely to get treated and are forced into using free health clinics which significantly delay treatment and put the entire community at risk.

PLEASE SIGN MY PETITION TO REQUIRE INSURANCE COMPANIES TO COVER INJECTABLES LIKE THE VACCINES FOR MENINGITIS AND PENICILLIN USED TO TREAT SYPHILIS UNDER BOTH MEDICAL AND PHARMACY PLANS.

Thank you.