NEW YORK – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today denounced the signing a tax bill that targets low income and LGBTQ communities into law. This bill includes a repeal of the individual mandate, a key component of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is expected cause 13 million Americans to lose their insurance coverage.

“This scam of a tax bill is a clear and targeted attack on LGBTQ Americans and some of our nation’s most vulnerable communities,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. “Trump is allowing his personal hostility for the progress made by former President Obama and his hateful anti-LGBTQ ideology to dictate the health and well-being of the country over the will of the many who vocally rejected this bill.”

Uninsured rates among LGBTQ adults fell from 28% to 11% between following the enactment of the ACA, which the Trump administration continues to actively sabotage. Targeting the ACA is not the only way Trump is trying to strip LGBTQ communities of affordable and inclusive healthcare. Just this past Friday reports surfaced that multiple Health and Human Services agencies are being directed to censor up to seven words, including “transgender” and “diversity,” from all documents pertaining to their 2018 budgets. The pressure to censor words in budget proposals could have long-standing effects on vital programs focused on HIV prevention and researching healthcare inequities within LGBTQ communities.

Only one-third of Americans approve of this disastrous bill with the majority of U.S. residents, including one in five Trump supporters believing that this legislation will hurt them personally. 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: How President Trump is Actively Undermining the Affordable Care Act
 

• 12.2017 – Trump signs the GOP tax bill into law which includes the repeal the individual mandate, a key component of the ACA, which is projected to cause 13 million Americans to lose insurance coverage.
   
• 10.12.17 - Trump signs healthcare executive order to allow individuals and small businesses to buy health insurance that skirts state regulations and ACA protections.
   
• 10.6.17 – The trump administration rolled back the ACA mandate which  required employers and insurers under the ACA to provide health insurance that allowed affordable opportunities to acquire birth control and contraception access.
   
• 9.27.17 - Trump administration told all 10 of their Department of Health and Human Services regional directors to not participate in ACA outreach.
   
• 9.22.17 - Reporting reveals the Trump Administration will be shutting down the Healthcare.gov website for 12 hours on all but one of the Sundays (a day which most Americans have off from work) during the ACA open enrollment period. 
   
• 9.15.17 - The budget for healthcare navigators, who help people through the process to buy marketplace insurance plans, was cut nearly in half from $63 million to $36 million. 
   
• 8.31.17 - Trump administration announced they are slashing the ACA's advertising budget by 90%; from $100 million to $10 million. 
   
• 8.10.17 – Reporting reveals that the Department of Health and Human Services cut off relationship with the Latino Affordable Care Act Coalition, a group that has worked with the White House since 2013 to develop outreach and educational campaigns aimed at increasing Latinx enrollment in the ACA.
   
• 7.28.17 - Trump outright admitted that his goal is to sabotage the ACA: “Let Obamacare implode."
   
• 4.13.17 - ACA open enrollment period reduced by six weeks, cutting the deadline from Jan. 31 to Dec. 15.
   
• 1.20.17 - Trump signed an executive order telling the IRS not enforce ACA individual mandate within hours of taking office.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: How the GOP Tax Bill Targets LGBTQ Americans  
 

Eliminates the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) without it, millions of people will drop out of the insurance market and drive up health care costs. This will result in 13 million low-income individuals losing healthcare coverage in the next 10 years, with 4 million losing health coverage in the first year. Cutting health care will affect people at risk for, or living with HIV and result in lack of access to essential medications. 

• The 65% of LGBTQ adults with preexisting conditions rely on the ACA and LGBTQ are more likely to be uninsured compared to the non-LGBTQ population.  

Raises the deficit by as much as 2.2 trillion dollars resulting in spending cuts to vital programs. According to the AARP, the legislation would result in an automatic $25 billion cut to Medicare.  

• Think Progress: Paul Ryan admits the GOP will gut Medicare and Medicaid to pay for tax cuts. 
   
• Newsweek: Republicans will Cut Social Security and Medicare after Tax Plan Passes, says Marco Rubio.
   
• Medicare is the largest federal funder of HIV care and treatment. Massive cuts to the program would put many people with HIV at risk of losing access to life-saving medicines and treatment 

Lowest-income Americans will take a large hit under the Senate tax bill.  

• LGBTQ Americans, especially those who are transgender, people of color, or both, experience higher rates of poverty than the general population, and the new tax plan raises taxes for people making less than $30k/y. 

Includes an expanded child tax credit that excludes low-income families. This benefit will not be accessible for 10 million children whose parent(s) work for low pay.

Families living in poverty are disproportionally LGBTQ. Single LGBTQ adults raising children are three times more likely to report household incomes near the poverty line and married and partnered LGBTQ adults are twice as likely.