Louisiana Blue Cross delays canceling AIDS patients' policies

Louisiana's largest insurer has agreed, for now, to continue accepting payments from a federal program that helps pay for insurance coverage for lower-income patients with HIV and AIDS.

Critics accused Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana of using the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to cancel the insurance policies of low-income beneficiaries who are affected by the costly chronic disease. The criticisms came in reaction to a decision by the insurer to enforce a policy against letting outside groups pay for individual insurance polices through the reform law's insurance exchanges.

Hundreds of HIV/AIDS patients risk losing coverage over the issue.

The insurer said it wasn't canceling policies, but rather enforcing a pre-existing policy of not accepting payments for exchange premiums from anyone other than the beneficiary or a beneficiary's family. The policy was put in place in reaction to fears that hospitals, drug companies and devicemakers would deliberately add sicker, more expensive patients to the insurance system by paying for their coverage.

Lambda Legal, a New York-based not-for-profit advocacy group for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, filed a class-action complaint on behalf of Louisianans who get subsidized insurance through the federal Ryan White program, after the Louisiana Blues announced payments would be rejected from the program on behalf of low-income HIV and AIDS patients.

The insurer told U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson that it would continue accepting payments until a court can determine whether the Blues' policy was an illegal form of discrimination. A hearing on a temporary restraining order barring enforcement of the policy is set for Monday.

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