They Want To...

Harm us! They want to inflict pain and suffering on the LGBTQ+ community. Don’t believe me? Then why else would they cut funding to AIDS programs, forcing people off their life-saving medication?

New emergency rules finish an administrative challenge to AIDS drug program cuts

AIDS Healthcare Foundation attorney accuses DeSantis administration of ‘legal subterfuge”

Florida Phoenix

By Christine Sexton

February 25, 2026

The DeSantis administration has filed an emergency rule that restricts eligibility for an AIDS drug assistance program beginning March 1, effectively bringing an end to an administrative challenge filed by a leading AIDS healthcare provider.

But a legal challenge to the emergency rules already is looming. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) said Wednesday it would immediately challenge the emergency rules. Hearings on emergency rule challenges must be heard within 14 days.

State Administrative Law Judge W. David Watkins had scheduled an emergency hearing  on AHF’s request to lift an automatic stay that has prevented its legal challenge against the Department of Health from going forward. 

AHF’s underlying case hinged on the argument that the DOH violated Florida law when it announced cost-cutting at the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), including scaling back who’s eligible and what drugs are available. 

DOH claims the changes, announced on its website and in correspondence to affected ADAP clients, need to be made because the program faces a $120 million deficit. About 16,000 people living with HIV and AIDS are expected to be affected by the changes, which include limiting income eligibility for the program from $63,840 annually for an individual to $20,748 annually.

Diseases are not political, if you have funding short fall... Fund It!

Unlike general rules, emergency rules take effect immediately and aren’t required to go through the rulemaking process.

“I think proceeding today on the question that’s teed up on the notice of whether the stay should be lifted or not lifted is, again from our perspective, an academic exercise in light of the emergency rule filed yesterday,” said Lombard, of the Tallahassee firm Lombard Law. “So, our perspective is that, for today’s purposes, there’s nothing to be done. Nothing to be done in the case, period, and all this is moot and subject to dismissal.”

Without treatments, the disease will spread. Republicans keep calling AIDS the “gay disease,” but diseases are equal opportunity infectors — they don’t care what political party you support or who you love. HIV infects people equally.

The reality is simple: this is a disease. Cutting funding doesn’t stop it. The virus is still out there.

WFMZ headline says it all Florida’s proposed cuts to AIDS drug program threaten patient care and public health

More than 128,000 Floridians are living with HIV. The state has the second-highest rate of new HIV diagnoses after Georgia, with approximately 4,500 new diagnoses in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available.

But access to treatment could be in jeopardy if potential budget cuts, announced in January 2026 by the Florida Department of Health, are enacted.

These changes, set to go into effect on March 1, would cut funding for the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which helps more than 31,000 Floridians with HIV/AIDS afford care.

Without the drugs, those 31,000 people can now spread the disease again! When AIDS/HIV came to the US it was carried by gay men but it has spread far and wide.

They cite budget pressure & federal funding shifts, and rapidly rising drug costs, but the cost of not covering the drugs is much greater!

AHF attorney Louise Wilhite-St. Laurent reluctantly agreed with Lombard on that point but not before she accused the DeSantis administration of “legal subterfuge,” noting the administration had filed a motion asking Watkins to quash seven subpoenas it had served on DOH employees requiring them to appear at the emergency hearing.

The motion to quash the subpoenas was the latest legal maneuver from the DeSantis administration that she insisted were intended to stifle discussion.

Other maneuvers included the DOH noticing that it would publish the rules necessary to cut program, which allowed the DOH to take advantage of a state law that enables agencies to obtain automatic stay in certain administrative challenges involving rulemaking.

Oh, the administration knows exactly what it is doing and what these cuts will cause. They know HIV has spread into Black and Latino populations, and even into the senior population. AIDS is a growing problem in long-term care facilities.

These cuts are targeted at the LGBTQ+ community for one reason only... to punish the LGBTQ+ community!