It’s Time to Enroll in an Affordable Care Act Health Plan
BY LIZ KRUEGER | It would be an understatement to say that the 2018 Affordable Care Act open enrollment period began under a dark cloud of uncertainty. With the Trump administration regularly declaring that the ACA marketplace is imploding, gutting enrollment funding, and slashing cost-sharing subsidies, it is understandable that Americans have reservations about purchasing health […]
Catholic Church Anti-LGBTQ Guns Still Firing on All Cylinders
BY ANDY HUMM | It has been quite a week for anti-LGBTQ assaults from the international Catholic hierarchy. We’ll start the round-up of recent events right here in New York. Cardinal Dolan V. Gay Arts: Cardinal Timothy Dolan, an appointee of Pope Benedict Emeritus and a hardliner, softened a bit last year and finally allowed […]
Malliotakis’ Dog Whistle to Anti-LGBTQ Voters
BY RITCHIE TORRES | Since last November, we’ve seen Trump-emboldened Republicans try to roll back many of the hard-fought rights of our city’s LGBTQ communities. And since November, I’ve never been more proud to be from New York — a city of resistance where thousands of people have stood up for justice and tolerance. And where […]
Torpedo Obamacare, Then Grab a Rose Garden Beer
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | Even as Republican members of the House of Representatives jumped on a bus headed for a Rose Garden celebration of their Obamacare repeal vote — an event where President Donald Trump smirked before the cameras and then treated the GOP faithful to brewskies — LGBTQ health care and civil rights advocates joined […]
Obamacare Works — Just Ask Mike Pence
BY DOUG WIRTH | As governor of Indiana, Mike Pence slashed state health spending, eliminating Scott County Planned Parenthood — the only place for residents of that rural area to get tested for HIV. Shortly afterwards, HIV began to spread throughout this community, in large part due to an injection drug use epidemic. As the crisis […]
Trump’s Budget Outline Alarms LGBTQ Health Experts
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE | While only the broadest outlines of Donald Trump’s first federal budget are known, some AIDS groups are reacting with alarm at the possibility that his proposals could lead to large cuts in federal programs that fund care for people with HIV and services that prevent new HIV infections. “Last night President Trump […]
Gorsuch Pushes Court Balance to the Right
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD | When Justice Antonin Scalia died last February, then-candidate Donald Trump said that if he were elected he would appoint somebody in the mold of Scalia to take his place. That statement came in the context of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement that his Republican majority would not consider, much […]
Trump Goes With Scalia Acolyte for High Court
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE | In a brief White House event that was nationally televised, Donald Trump nominated a conservative federal circuit court judge often compared to Justice Antonin Scalia to fill the US Supreme Court seat that was left vacant by Scalia’s death in early 2016. “You’ve entrusted me with a most solemn assignment,” Neil […]
Nationwide, Obamacare Supporters Rally
PHOTO ESSAY BY DONNA ACETO | Just days after Republicans in Congress approved a parliamentary measure that would allow them to move forward with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act without the Democrats in the Senate having the ability to mount a filibuster that would require repeal advocates to secure 60 votes, Americans gathered […]
Trans Employee Can Sue If Surgery Benefits Refused
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD | Does a transgender employee who seeks coverage under her employer’s benefit plans for breast augmentation surgery have a legal remedy if her claims are denied? US District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater ruled on January 13 that a trans woman employed by L-3 Communications Integrated Systems may pursue a sex discrimination […]
