Why is the Publix grocery-store chain denying employees coverage for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)?
According to The Body.com, the chain’s decision could boil down to antigay bias; rejection of PrEp under moral grounds. The website reports the company’s rejection of the HIV-prevention drug is “as unique as it is puzzling.”
That’s according to David Holland, M.D., M.H.S., director of a PrEP clinic in Atlanta, who says he was unsuccessful in getting Publix to cover PrEP for one of its employees.
“We’ve started over 400 people on PrEP at our clinic alone,” he says, “and this is the only person that we weren’t able to get PrEP for.”
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The employee appealed the decision, only to be rejected on two other occasions.
In fact, this employee was “the only one we were not able to resolve through an appeal,” Holland said.
“What we found out from the insurance company was that it came, ultimately, from the employer. It wasn’t just an insurance issue; it was [that] the employer did not want it covered in the insurance.”
Publix — a company with a largely conservative board that scored zero on HRC’s research into “workplace fairness” — has yet to publicly issue a statement about their denial of employee access to PrEP (which was first reported by blogger Josh Robbins in November 2016.)
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According to The Body:
Three of the seven states that Publix operates in — North Carolina, Georgia, and its home state of Florida — are ranked in the top-10 states with the highest number of HIV diagnoses in 2016, according to the CDC.
“They’re not a mom-and-pop grocery store,” says social justice advocate Devin Barrington Ward.
“For them to not know that they operate in a region that carries the bulk of the epidemic at this point, that most of the new cases in the United States occur where their grocery stores are, and for them not to provide that protection for their staff is irresponsible, at the very least.”
Amistad St. Arromand, executive director of The Gentlemen’s Foundation, a black gay non-profit in Atlanta, tells The Body:
“I was really shocked to learn about this because I know I have tons of friends who work for Publix and, believe it or not, I hear really great things about Publix as a corporation.
The fact that they are employee-driven, the fact that there are plenty of opportunities for their employees to advance as the company grows, and certainly not least, [at a company whose motto is] ‘Where Shopping is a Pleasure,’ working at Publix should also be a pleasure for its employees.”
Anne Tucker, associate professor at the Georgia State University College of Law, doesn’t think a lawsuit is necessarily the answer, regardless of Publix’s reasoning:
“I’m not sure it’s legally actionable, but that doesn’t mean it’s not reprehensible. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a bad public relations story, that doesn’t mean it can’t be the focus of other campaigns to try to change it.”
KaiserVonScheiss
More like an anti-promiscuity bias. Be monogamous.
ChrisK
I know. It’s the way I feel about condoms. They promote Promiscuity too and should be banned.
KaiserVonScheiss
@ChrisK
Firstly, I never argued that it “promotes” promiscuity. Promotion has nothing to do with anything. The main reason to take these drugs is to be promiscuous. If you want to live a risky lifestyle, whatever. Just don’t demand other people pay for it.
Secondly, apples and oranges. Condoms are not the same as a drug, nor would a sane person demand their employer subsidise condoms.
dwes09
Once again the King of shit assumes his imagination is reality. Many discordant couples use PrEP as a way to experience more intimacy within their relationship. How EXACTLY do you know this is not the case here? And as regressives like to believe they stand for fiscal responsibility, PrEP in all uses reduces the costs of seroconversion in greater drug expenses and monitoring.
PrEP is more effective at reducing the transmission of HIV than condoms even when doses are occasionally missed.
As for this ludicrous claim:”Firstly, I never argued that it “promotes” promiscuity.”
If you didn’t believe that it did, in fact, promote promiscuity you would never have posted as you did: your post is based on the implied argument that PrEP promotes promiscuity!
You need obviously to learn both to think and to differentiate between your imagination and the real world.
frankcar1965
I hope your ass gets a highly resistant strain of HIV and dies a slow slow painful death. Oh, and co-infection with Hep C would be nice too.
Wes
It may appear to some that it prohibits promiscuity but it helps couples (whatever their sexual orientation) where one partner is HIV positive protect their partner who should be able to take this medication to block infection of HIV.
Wes
In the very least, Publix needs to public ally clarify their justification and “own it” for better or worse. I want to know more about where I spend my money.
Juanjo
And of course, the entire world should live according to the standards of the Queen of Shitheads because, well just because. After all, Kaiser is monogamous with his hand since no one else can stand to be in the same room with him.
KaiserVonScheiss
@dwes09
Wrong! I don’t think others should have to subsidise a person’s sexual lifestyle, monogamous or not.
Bob Scardino
@dwes09 – He is not the ‘king’ of shit, he’s the ’emperor’ of it. Kaiser means emperor; koenig means king. Also, what’s wrong with promiscuity?
KaiserVonScheiss
@Bob
My ethics tend to be Aristotelian. I believe that moderation is the path to happiness. Promiscuity only satisfies base desires, and does not result in a meaningful relationship.
Brody
Another day, another opportunity to labels ourselves victims of the evil homophobic wealthy oppressive white cisgender patriarchy.
ps – of COURSE it isn’t anti-gay bias, it’s called Not Everything In Life Is Free.
Get used to it.
Harley
Thank Vladimir.
Wes
In the very least, Publix needs to public ally clarify their justification and “own it” for better or worse. I want to know more about where I spend my money.
Juanjo
Our dear troll, Brody sockpuppet is at it again. How do you know what is free or not free? Hmmm? Publix covers around 70% of its employees with health, vision and dental insurance. There are copays and contributions paid in. Interesting to note is that all prescriptions are filled at a rate of 25.00 per prescription but the employee must get the medication through Publix, they cannot go to an outside pharmacy.
Brody being the loving troll he is, seems to think that PrEP is something everyone else should pay for outside of their health coverage plan. Since Publix has a group plan through Blue Cross, this means that for covered medications the employee pays only 25.00 per script and medications are bought by BC at a drastically reduced rate that someone without insurance cannot obtain. And of course, providing PrEP is economically beneficial for the company since it is much cheaper to provide preventive care than it is to provide medical treatment once someone has a medical condition.
Shaugn
Just for clarification. Most large companies are self-insured. The ‘insurance company” is most often just the administrative agent to review and pay (from company funds) according to the contract. They may also be a reinsurance for large cases, those over a contractual dollar amount. Either way they can approve to pay or not pay solely on the company’s discretion.
mhoffman953
Maybe Publix can’t afford to have it in their company health insurance program. Here’s an alternative idea, if you don’t like your company’s health insurance program, go get your own health insurance.
Brian
Yeah, I’m sure that’s it, this huge grocery chain can’t afford to cover a single medication in its group insurance plan.
It’s fine if you don’t think that they should cover it, but don’t use such a dumb reason to defend it.
mhoffman953
@Brian
Not all employer funded insurance programs cover all medications. I thought you would know that but I assume you’ve never received insurance through your employer.
Your employer is not obligated to provide all employees with insurance that covers everything under the sun. If you don’t like it, then you’re free to buy your own insurance plan which covers these drugs. Plus there are ways to get PrEP for free
ivanw222
Read the article again, the insurance company said it was Publix determined not to include it in their coverage, not the insurance company. It sounded like PrEP would be covered under their plan, but Publix refused it.
frankcar1965
Yea but I bet they cover all the breeding bitch employees they have.
Juanjo
Maybe Miss Hoffman might want to come up with some real evidence to support his usual bitchiness rather than her supposition about Publix being too poor to afford PrEP.
mhoffman953
@Juanjo
You’re creating a strawman argument now. I never said the company was “too poor”. Many times, businesses won’t cover all medications under their group insurance policies. There are times when businesses will only cover a generic version of some medications even. In this instance, Publix probably decided it would be cheaper for someone to buy condoms or to get PrEP for free instead of the company being forced to pay for it.
It’s also not so much of a gay issue because this company insurance program doesn’t cover PrEP for straight people either. If the company only let people of a certain group get the medication and not others, then that would be discrimination.
Are you disputing that people can’t get PrEP for free?
Brian
Why are you changing the argument? I’m well aware that insurance plans don’t cover every single medication known to man. However, you said “maybe Publix can’t afford to have it”. Which is idiotic, and quite different than them not wanting to cover it.
Brian
I don’t understand the logic behind these types of business decisions. I really would expect the bottom line to take priority over moral outrage, and preventing a disease or a pregnancy certainly has to be way cheaper than covering a lifetime of HIV meds and doctor visits, or the cost of a birth and up to 25 years of medical care for a child.
Whether or not you think these things should be covered for whatever reason, it seems like a no brainer business decision that it’s more cost effective to cover them.
Brody
When you begin to cover the expenses of providing a safety net for an employee’s extracurricular activities (which is what sex is), where does it end?
Should an employer also buy the protective goggles of an employee who plays paint-ball on weekends so they don’t risk eye injury?
Should an employer buy winter clothing for its employees who hunt so they don’t suffer frostbite?
Should an employer pay for flu shots? Pneumonia shots?
How far, exactly, should an employer go to protect their employees from contracting any viral or bacterial diseases and sicknesses and afflictions? Is there a limit, or should an employer be shackled with all of an employee’s precautionary measures?
dwes09
“Should an employer pay for flu shots? Pneumonia shots?”
They generally do.
It is in their best interest to keep their work force healthy.
It is no longer the 1890’s as you regressives wish it were. Employees are not slaves, one does not kick them out and replace them if they get sick as your Gilded Age heroes did. You likely think the only downside of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire was that the manufacturing facility was damaged. After all the new workers would be fresher and faster than the ones who died in the fire.
frankcar1965
What about all the fat employees they have? What about the smokers and dippers? What about the ones who eat a ton of sugar and get ? What the ones who eat raw oysters and rare burgers and get sick? What about people who ride in vehicles? I could go on you know.
Juanjo
My goodness the “what ifs” are just flying here. First of all preventive care is much cheaper than treatment which every insurance company knows and will tell any employer. That means that most companies do have covered programs offered to for example encourage people to stop smoking, lose weight, have better nutrition [especially for people with predispositions for diabetes, high blood pressure etc], improve exercise and promote a healthier lifestyle. Every health plan I have ever seen offers everyone covered flu shots and pneumonia shots for free. In fact, any regular vaccinations or boosters are offered. I know that many insurance plans fund free or very low-cost vaccination programs for people even not covered by insurance. Kaiser will give flu vaccinations to anyone who shows up at one of their clinics during flu season. I have been there and seen it done. Walgreens for years offered at cost vaccinations for flu.
The fact is the sock puppets just hate medical care is provided if it remotely looks like something they consider as “socialized”. But even were the article about people obtaining PrEP on their own dime, these Negative Nancys would all be engaging in a little slut shaming because that is just the sick little trolls they are.
Mr-DJ
So then why cover most pharmaceuticals? Make better eating and living decisions. No medicine for diabetes – eat the right foods, and exercise! No coverage if you get an accident. Learn to drive better. No medicines to combat high Cholesterol of those old fat cats running these companies, or medicine to control high blood pressure. Eat right and exercise right and live right. Etc.. Etc.. Etc.. These self-righteous idiots can’t even comprehend the origin and purpose of what collective insurance programs are meant to accomplish!
KaiserVonScheiss
PrEP is to prevent the sexual transmission of a disease. Many people have heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. through no fault of their own.
Yes, people accidentally get HIV, but the risk of that is so low that it doesn’t justify it being covered by your employer/insurance. The more stuff covered by insurance, the more expensive the premium (or higher the deductible) is for everybody.
dwes09
“Many people have heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. through no fault of their own.”
For most, heart disease is a “lifestyle” illness. The same is true for diabetes and the complications from both. Given your regressive bent, I am surprised you don’t recommend no coverage for them as well in those cases. After all poor diet choices, lack of exercise, smoking (even after quitting there is still lingering risk) are symptoms of the “lack of personal responsibility” the regressives love to harp on if the habits or risks are not theirs. But they are probably more likely to affect you so of course they are immune from your “logic”.
And if the risk is so low, that is a reason TO cover it (as actuaries well know)…it cuts costs, much as birth control cuts the cost of pregnancy hugely.
Juanjo
Oh my the Queen of the shiiteheads just said that diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol etc are acquired by people through no fault of their own? Really girl? Every one of those diseases is preventable [except type 1 diabetes]. I am sure that your doctor warned you for years about how your lifestyle choices were having an impact on your health, long before he put you on all those meds little Miss Kaiser now takes for her high blood pressure, heart, cholesterol etc.
KaiserVonScheiss
@Dwes09 @Juanjo
Yes, it may have escaped your notice, but there are people who get such things through no fault of their own. I have a cousin who developed diabetes as a child. She wasn’t overweight or lazy. Other people get heart disease and other ailments.
Yes, lifestyle plays a huge role and is the leading cause of many of these things. I know this first hand as a person who lost 140 pounds.
genericbrand
And let’s be frank, it would be cheaper to cover PrEP than it would be to cover the myriad of meds and both physical and mental health complications that could be associated with an employee actually contracting HIV…which I’m I’m sure they actually do probably cover. Jackasses
Jaxton
Publix is correct. Why on earth should it give you coverage for a purported preventive measure that may not even actually protect you?
Learn to keep your zipper restrained, goose.
dwes09
Though I would not expect a regressive to understand facts and statistics, PrEP is hugely effective, and is therefore a cost cutting method. And it is used by heterosexual folks like you and by monogamous discordant couples. Perhaps you need to learn to keep your mouth shut, but your mind open.
And if you are in fact gay, we have enough crap from the straight community (who is not necessarily less promiscuous than gay folks (if your contemporary regressive politician heroes are any indication), we don’t need backwards moral judgement from our own. It is lack of education that spreads disease, not simple sexual activity. Look at your President
s (and likely your) hero Roy Cohen, God knows how many people that right wing asshole spread HIV to as a result of his ignorance.
CastleSF
It should be a financially sensible move for this company to offer PrEP to its employees because the drug will save the company a lot more money. However, I support the prerogative of the company to decide what they want to offer. If you as an employee don’t like it, quit and work for a company that does. PrEP works best for committed and monogamous couple because you know the status of your partner. But if you sleep around and have unsafe or anonymous sex with multiple people, you will get nasty STIs over and over, even if you are protected from HIV.
JaredMacBride
Good reporting would have included Publix’ reasons for the decision or that the company filed to offer a reason. But, this is Queerty . . .
Paco
Do they deny blue penis pill coverage too?
gymmuscleboy
The same protection can be achieved by wearing condoms, right? Therefore isn’t the question “Should Publix be required to satisfy the desires (not need) of gay people to have bareback anal sex (instead of wearing a condom)”?
tham
It’s amazing how society brains get warped.
If PrEP came out in 1995. It would hailed as a miracle drug, the creators would win a noble prize and you would be able to get it at gay bars.
Now “Only sluts need it”
It’s like HPV…why would a parent ever risk their kid to cancer when you could stop it? Why?
CastleSF
@tham, to answer your question, it is because PrEP is expensive and there are other more affordable and equally effective ways such as condoms that not only prevents HIV but also protects one from other ugly and painful STIs. But let’s fact it. A lot of sluts want to enjoy unsafe sex without guilt and PrEP is the lesser evil than getting infected with HIV. I don’t like it but I recognize that we live in a less than ideal world and sometimes we just have to compromise.
tham
That’s a false equivalence, condoms are not safer, they break and some people fake (or is it called stealthing).
PrEp mainly protects the bottom. You are putting your health in someone else’s hand when you rely on the other person wearing a condom.
Sure, we’d all like to think “it’s been three weeks, I really like him, let’s get do it” and to learn they’re total creep jerks.
If we can stop HIV from spreading IT’S INSANE THAT WE DONT EVERYTHING WE CAN. If you lost a friend from AIDS, you’d feel the same.
CastleSF
If you are sleeping with men who even attempt to remove the condom during sex, then the problem is not these men. It’s a sign that you are not being careful with who you sleep with. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask how you could even allow yourself to sink so low to sleep with such a creep. Where is your self esteem?
anthony79
@castlesf
Wow… victim blaming. You truely are a POS.
linniejr
When I look at the comments that have been posted here, I have to shake my head in disbelief. The ignorance some of you are spewing is incredible!! Let’s ask a question, women who get sick or something after they have a baby, would it be alright if a company doesn’t cover whatever they need. What this company is doing shows they don’t care for those who work for them. Because if this company is not going to take care of it’s employees, why should the employees take care of them. Lets say a woman who contracts HIV and PreP is prescribed, according to what you say, the company shouldn’t take care of them.
This is not an issue of someone’s extracurricular activities, it’s about doing what’s right. I’m glad I saw this, so now I can start gathering people together to boycott this business.
SiamSam
Your boycott will probably be counterproductive. Just as many people will see it as bullying and start shopping at Publix while viewing us as pathological sex addicts justifying promiscuity and risky sexual practices.
CastleSF
@linniejr, in reality you think and act very much like the right-wing activists who want to boycott companies like Starbuck’s because the ideology of these companies does not conform to yours. Most boycotts almost always backfire. Don’t make that silly mistake again.
gymmuscleboy
linniejr: The question of access to PREP for a woman who contracts HIV is different from the question of access to PREP for a man who wants PREP so that he can enjoy unprotected anal sex
gymmuscleboy
@linniejr: To explain my above comment – it’s like if someone was playing “chicken” on the road and they get hit by a car – we treat them, of course. But we don’t subsidise those who play chicken on the road – if they want to engage in risky behaviour, that’s their own business.
kena2mi
At $56 per pill, $1700 a month and over $20000 a year, this seems just as likely to be a business decision as it is to be anti gay bias. Up to this point, all of the political pressure from the gay community has been on insurance companies and employers to cover it, and Gilead has been getting a free pass as they cash in on this drug that wasn’t even developed as Prep. They throw out copay assistance cards capped at $3600 a year and still make an exhorbitant profit, as users tell everyone they get it “for free” and think Gilead is a friend of the gay community. My insurance company not only made me jump through hoops to get on it, but classified it as a specialty drug (usually reserved for medications that are only taken for limited periods and have severe side effects) and charges me a $500 a month copay. A generic drug manufacturer has been given approval to manufacture a generic equivalent, which they say will cost less than $100 a YEAR to manufacture, but they’re being held up by a Gilead patent on the manufacturing process. Bottom line, if the objective is to reduce HIV infection rates, get Gilead to bring their price down to a level that is more in line with their actual costs, or get them to release that patent so we can get a generic on the market, and far more people will be able to get on it.
kena2mi
Oh, and to stay on it, I have to see the doctor every 3 months and spend upwards of $100 per visit, between the Office visit and required lab tests, because of that specialty drug classification.
george_harman
Harvoni Costs over $23,000, and many cases of Hepatitis C in BOOMERS were Sexually Acquired, so what is the Difference?
george_harman
Ok, If we are going to be fair, then we need to disallow Harvoni-since you can get Hepatitis from Promiscuity. Also, the HPV Vaccine should be Excluded from coverage, since that could turn your kid into a Whore…. I mean, in all fairness, if you don’t cover PREP, then any and All meds INCLUDING Viagra should not be covered, since Boners Lead to Bad Cooties and Sin!
chris33133
It may help to place this decision in perspective when you realize that the FL State Health Department is prescribing PrEP throughout all of its clinics. So why wouldn’t one of the State’s largest private employers not do the same?