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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

It's a shame that PrEP is still so expensive.

It’s frustrating that it’s so expensive for the most at-risk communities in the US.

Because you can totally work the systems to get it affordably. Besides insurance, there are clinics, there are coupons, there are programs…but you have to have the information literacy and the time to figure out how to jump through all those hoops.

Me, I work remotely, I have insurance, I live on the north side of Chicago, I can get my Truvada easily. You live on the west side of Chicago with no Howard Brown nearby, and you work a service sector job where your hours are algorithmically doled out to you? Far, far harder.

I think, same as with vaccinations, this clearly highlights how all of society really benefits from universal health care. In fact, why isn't preventable infectious disease talked more about in that debate? Pretty obvious, no?

This implies that becoming HIV+ is increasingly a disease of the working poor (in countries like America without public health care). Or do public health care clinics have sufficient vouchers? In which case why wouldn’t people just resell their Truvada?

It is expensive, but it is accessible. Truvada for PrEP has a program both for insured patients that covers co-pays up to $7,200 per year (I pay zero dollars a year because of this), and a medication assistance program for uninsured patients where after signing up and meeting eligibility requirements (which are basically 'are you at risk of getting HIV' and 'are you not wealthy to the point where you should definitely be able to afford insurance') you receive the medication at zero cost.

This is true of many medications, but Truvada is especially famous for it. As a gay man I have a lot of friends on it, and because of the aforementioned program, only two of the thirty+ pay any co-pay at all, and it's something like 20 bucks for them.

That's better than I had imagined it was, though I wonder about those on really lousy insurance, or no insurance. Or perhaps those on their parent's insurance that aren't "out" yet, etc.

Just confirming this.

I don’t know anyone paying full price for Truvada. It’s either free, or whatever your insurance copay for drugs happens to be. (It’s annoying I have to go to a specific pharmacy with my drug plan, but whatever.)

After long, long pressure from activists, PrEP is now covered by insurance in Europe (at least Germany). Same as the accompanying monthly(?) bloodwork for potential side effects (liver damage?), of course.

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