This week, Florida lawmakers reached a budget agreement that reversed cuts instituted earlier this year to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, or ADAP. It restores eligibility of the program to those earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $63,000 per year.

“Essentially, back in January, the Department of Health announced some pretty steep cuts that essentially reduced the income threshold for who would be eligible from $63,000 a year to about $20,000 a year,” said Esteban Wood, Director of Advocacy and Legislative Affairs at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, or AHF.

To ensure that no one went without their medication, AHF paid for those medications during the weeks when legislators deemed them to be cut. The bill was upwards of $500,000, Wood said.

Under the agreement, the ADAP program is now funded for the full year ahead.

Lawmakers are scheduled to vote on the budget Friday.

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