Trump’s Racist Assault on Obamacare Could Destroy HIV Progress

Amy Coney Barrett threatens Anthony Fauci’s plan to end HIV

James Finn
James Finn - The Blog

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Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID Director, photo posted to Flickr by NIAID. (CC BY 2.0)

Striking down Obamacare would be homophobic, transphobic, and racist

President Trump did not hide the fact that in seeking to fill Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s seat on the Supreme Court, he wanted one more vote to end the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who has argued the Act is unconstitutional, he may have found that vote. If the Supreme Court strikes the act down, Americans of all walks of life will suffer, deprived of health care in the middle of a global pandemic.

Less reported is the disparate impact that deprivation would cause to LGBTQ people of color. The fight against HIV/AIDS in marginalized communities would be crippled. Ending Obamacare would be an essentially racist and homophobic act that would cause enormous, needless suffering.

Barrett’s history indicates she opposes the ACA

Barrett wrote in a 2017 academic paper that Chief Justice John Roberts “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.” She argued with a powerful voice that the Act is unsalvageably unconstitutional. Four months…

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James Finn
James Finn - The Blog

James Finn is an LGBTQ columnist, a former Air Force intelligence analyst, an alumnus of Act Up NY, and an agented but unpublished novelist.