--- title: "Religious Conservatives Trying to End Insurance Coverage of Incredibly Effective Anti-HIV Drug" description: "Conservative Christian business owners believe that covering HIV prevention medication violates their freedom of religion rights." date: "2025-01-19" modified: "2025-01-19" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/conservatives-prep-insurance-uconstitutional" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "RX and Medicine" tags: - "conservatives" - "HIV" - "politics" - "prep" --- # Religious Conservatives Trying to End Insurance Coverage of Incredibly Effective Anti-HIV Drug ![Conservative Christian business owners believe that covering HIV prevention medication violates their freedom of religion rights.]() *\Image: Justin Sullivan via Getty / Futurism\* The Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments from a group of conservatives who think that the Affordable Care Act is violating their religious rights — by offering coverage for an extraordinarily effective HIV prevention medicine. As [*SCOTUSblog* reports](), the highest court in the land is taking up the *Becerra v. Braidwood Management* case, named for Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and the Texas-based corporation Braidwood Management, which is owned by Republican megadonor and [alleged voter fraudster Steven Hoze](). Initially filed in 2020, this lawsuit against the federal government argues that the ACA's mandated coverage of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PReP) drugs — and hundreds of other preventative services, including screenings for STIs and cancer, as well as the HPV vaccine — is unconstitutional. PreP is *extremely* effective at preventing HIV infection. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PReP drugs like Truvada Descovy can [reduce the risk of getting HIV by 99 percent]() when taken correctly, which is a huge deal for anyone who remembers how people were [dying in droves from AIDs]() just a few decades ago. And specifically, many of those hundreds of thousands of deaths were gay men. That, plus some homophobia, is why Braidwood, Kelley Orthodontics, and a handful of individual Texans, have maintained for years now that the ACA's preventative care mandate "violates their religious beliefs by making them complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior, drug use, and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman." As plaintiff [Joel Miller said in 2023](), he and his family do not "engage in the behaviors that makes \[sic\] preventive treatment necessary" because, as he put it, his wife is "past her childbearing years." (Which is itself a chilling peek into type of mind that would bring a case like this.) Ironically enough, the first Trump Administration defended the ACA's no-cost preventative care requirements back in 2020, as [*CNN* notes]() in its reporting of the case reaching the SCOTUS docket. It's unclear whether president-elect Donald Trump's new administration will do so — especially because one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, Gene Hamilton, runs a nonprofit alongside incoming deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. Beyond Hamilton, the plaintiffs in *Braidwood v. Becerra* have another heavyweight in their corner: former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, the architect of the state's six-week abortion ban. In 2022, a federal judge in Texas [ruled partially in favor of the plaintiffs](), striking down the clause that required businesses to cover the lawsuit's laundry list of preventative medicines and services for free. The next year, another conservative jurist in the Longhorn State doubled down on that ruling and [issued a nationwide injunction]() against "any and all agency actions taken to implement or enforce the preventive care coverage requirements." Last year, the [Justice Department appealed the decision](), which found that the decision made by lower courts "jeopardizes healthcare protections that have been in place for 14 years and that millions of Americans currently enjoy." SCOTUS has not yet set a date for the hearing, which advocates say will not only harm queer Americans, but anyone seeking preventative care. "It could harm so many people," Shelly Skeen, a senior attorney at the Dallas-based Lambda Legal nonprofit, [told the LGBTQ website *them*](). "I want folks to recognize that this is not limited to people who are LGBT. This could have more broad impacts on all of us." **More on conservative challenges:** [*Trump Blames California Wildfires on "Worthless Fish"*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()