20 million Americans, including many LGBTQ people, rely on the ACA for healthcare

NEW YORK – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today released a timeline of President Trump’s ongoing efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in response to the signing of new executive order which undermines state regulations and ACA protections. Trump’s new executive order could open loopholes that draw younger and healthier people to bare-bones plans, destabilizing the marketplace, inflating costs for ACA participants and undermining protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

“President Trump is working to sabotage the Affordable Care Act in any way possible; showing complete disregard for the health and well-being of millions of Americans, including many in the LGBTQ community, who rely on the ACA for coverage,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. “Healthcare is a human right and now more than ever we must keep fighting to protect our care and demand the inclusive and affordable healthcare that the LGBTQ community, and all Americans, deserve to live and thrive.”
 

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

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.

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: What a Successful Affordable Care Act Sabotage Would Mean for LGBTQ Americans

Loss of Coverage for the LGBTQ Community

Uninsured rates among LGBTQ adults fell from 28% to 11% between June 2013 and March 2015, following the enactment of the ACA. This is larger decline than that for non-LGBTQ adults, according to a 2015 study by Urban Institute.

Access to Medicaid, which is the larger source of coverage for people with HIV living in the United States, significantly increased under the ACA.  Kaiser Institute: “Medicaid spending on HIV accounts for 30% of all federal spending on HIV care and when combining the states’ share of spending, is the second largest source of public financing for HIV care in the U.S.”

The nondiscrimination provision of the ACA, Section 1557, “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability” in programs that receive federal funding, protecting transgender patients from being denied services based on their gender identity. This protects gender non-conforming and transgender people, including transition-related care and gender confirmation surgery.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women blazes into theaters nationwide this Friday (October 13^th) with a 90% Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score and GLAAD is excited to bring you a first look at a scene from the film, along with a new interview with its writer and director, Angela Robinson.

The film tells the story of psychologist William Moulton Marston (Luke Evans) – famous for inventing both the Wonder Woman character and the lie detector test – but also, the unconventional polyamorous relationship he shared with his wife Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall) and their mistress, Olive (Bella Heathcote), both of whom inspired the iconic superhero.

In GLAAD’s exclusive first look, William, Elizabeth, Olive, and Olive’s fiancé share a picnic by a lake and play a guessing game about what each of them longs for in their lives:

GLAAD caught up with Robinson to ask about what attracted her to tell this very compelling story of 3 individuals who chose to lead lives that were much more progressive than the times they lived in.

(Photo courtesy of Annapurna Pictures)

The plot of “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women” isn’t exactly easy to explain casually to someone – they really have to see the film to understand its message – what’s your “elevator pitch” for describing it to anyone who’s not already familiar with it?

I tell people the film is about the extraordinary life of the guy who created Wonder Woman and the two women who were the inspiration for the Wonder Woman character. If it’s a long elevator ride I go on to say that Dr. Marston is the inventor of the lie detector test and that he and his wife fell in love with their student and they all lived together and raised a family together and that this love story is the origin story of Wonder Woman.  

What drew you to this story? And why tell it now in 2017?

I’ve always been a Wonder Woman fan. After I shot my first feature, D.E.B.S., Jordana Brewster knew I was a Wonder Woman fan and gave me a history of Wonder Woman book as a wrap gift. I read it and there was a chapter in the book on the Marstons’ story and I was blown away. It was just such an incredible story. I became obsessed with telling it. What struck me when I read it was what a contemporary story it was. The Marstons were ahead of their time in the 1930’s and 40’s and they’re STILL ahead of their time.  

Although it’s the story of a polyamorous relationship, the women in the relationship truly have agency. Why was it important to portray this?

When I started writing the film I realized that you couldn’t tell a story about the man who created Wonder Woman without fully exploring the two women in his life who inspired the character. It was important to me that both Elizabeth and Olive have agency — they were strong, bold, incredibly brave and intelligent women. As for the love story part of it, I think the love story is between all three of them — I think that’s why their relationship worked, it was like a tripod, if you remove one of the legs then the whole thing would tip over. (Spoiler alert…) In the end, Marston dies and Elizabeth and Olive lived together for the rest of their lives. That’s what really happened. 

How did being a queer woman of color inform your choices while directing this film?

In a couple of ways — I am very sensitive to representation and how important that is. It’s important to me as a viewer and so it’s also important to me as a filmmaker that I approach and portray identity and communities in a respectful way. I consulted with two female “rope experts” who were part of the Boston BDSM/kink community who designed the beautiful rope work in the film and gave me and the actors workshops on the history/philosophy/safety/practice of BDSM. As a woman, I worked with the idea of the “female gaze” with my cinematographer (Bryce Fortner).  In the staging of the love scenes, it was important to me that the female characters were in control of what was happening. I also was very committed in the film to the idea of “consent as foreplay.” The characters are always asking the other characters for their consent and checking in with them — a lot of what is erotic about the film is psychological. I feel like it comes from a female POV.  

A petition is going around currently to “make Wonder Woman bisexual” in the current big budget Warner Bros. franchise, to match how the character is written canonically in the comic book – do you think it’s important for the Gal Gadot-portrayed version of Wonder Woman to explore her sexual orientation on the big screen? And if so, why is it important?

I do think it is important – now that Wonder Woman is canonically queer ‑ to represent that in the next Wonder Woman. I think it would mean so much to so many people! I also feel like being true to oneself and living your truth is deeply embedded in what Wonder Woman is about and that it would be brave if the big screen version of Wonder Woman could reflect that.