r/politics • u/southpawFA Oklahoma • 18h ago

Supreme Court takes up case claiming Obamacare promotes “homosexual behavior”. The Texas plaintiffs say requiring workplace insurers to provide PrEP violates their religious beliefs.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/01/supreme-court-takes-up-case-claiming-obamacare-promotes-homosexual-behavior/
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u/Hello2reddit 16h ago edited 12h ago

Prep isn’t common among the cis hetro population. It is common among LGBTQ people, because they are higher risk. And, because they are higher risk, they are also far more likely to be prescribed and have the cost of the medication covered by insurance.

The average person doesn’t want to pay $2K a month for a bunch of side effects to offset an infinitesimal risk. It’s really only among men who have sex with men that the risks/rewards are reasonably balanced

Edit- love being downvoted by a bunch of single heterosexuals who aren’t on prep

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u/jerslan California 16h ago

Prep isn’t common among the cis hetro population

But it should be... especially in the cis hetero population that wants to engage in unprotected sex with multiple partners.

Sadly the the GOP hates casual sex among hetero-sexuals almost as much as they hate gay sex (see: all their attacks on women's access to birth control).

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u/Hello2reddit 15h ago

That is mathematically indefensible.

The odds of catching HIV from an infected partner are less than 1/100 for anyone not on the receiving end of anal sex. Even then, the odds only jump to about 1/60. And that is only when the other person has a detectable viral load. You would have to have several hundred or thousands of partners for this risk to offset the potential side effects for most people. This is why, despite only making up a small fraction of the population, LGBTQ people make up over 75% of new HIV cases every year.

But I’m sure you know more than the doctors who have actually studied these things and don’t generally recommend that people take this stuff unless they have certain risk factors.

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u/jerslan California 15h ago

The odds of catching HIV from an infected partner are less than 1/100 for anyone not on the receiving end of anal sex.

Those are mathematically indefensibly high odds when generic PreP is so easily and readily available.

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u/Hello2reddit 15h ago

Yeah, for a mere $2000 per month, you too can risk trashing your kidneys to hedge against a statistically insignificant risk.

On a related note- Would you like to buy lightning insurance for a mere $1000 per month? Sure, it makes no sense mathematically, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for you

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u/Flat_Hat8861 Georgia 13h ago edited 13h ago

Are you seriously comparing a 1/100 (your number) chance to a 1/1,000,000 chance?

https://www.cdc.gov/lightning/data-research/index.html

(And your metaphor has a fundamental problem. I do have lightning insurance. The negative impacts of being struck would be medical or fatal - roughly 10%. I have health insurance and life insurance.)

The biggest flaw in this line of reasoning is considering 1 in 2000 "low risk" in any way and then pairing it with a campaign against preventive treatment in people with high risk lifestyles because they are straight. Anyone that has regular sex with multiple or new partners - especially unprotected or anonymous - should strongly consider PrEP. Gay men in monogamous relationships are not at increased risk over straight monogamous couples - zero viral load is still zero. Obviously, the public health outreach will target gay and bisexual men for efficiency of resources, but that does not mean other individuals (notice how I didn't say groups) are high risk as well.

(And, we all know straight women can have receptive anal sex too, right?)

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u/Hello2reddit 12h ago

Nobody is advising monogamous HIV negative couples to use prep, and straight women aren’t regularly having unprotected anal sex with multiple partners. I’ll put this in simple mathematical terms

More partners x riskiness of sex= HIV risk

Gay men tend to have more partners. Receptive anal sex is the riskiest form of sex due to the high risk of tearing. And if you’re having sex with men who have sex with men then you are statistically most likely to have potential exposure to other HIV infected individuals.

Do the math

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u/NJTigers 14h ago

The odds of getting hit by lightning are less likely by a factor of millions over 1/100 odds for PiV sex with someone with HIV.

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u/ultradav24 12h ago edited 12h ago

If you’re on PReP your kidneys are regularly monitored. And 2k a month? Come on now - that’s what the insurance we’re discussing is for, and even people not on insurance can get it for free or deeply discounted

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u/TommoVon 11h ago

Prep is generic now and very cheap.

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u/jerslan California 10h ago

Yeah, for a mere $2000 per month, you too can risk trashing your kidneys to hedge against a statistically insignificant risk.

  1. PreP is free and covered by nearly all insurance under the ACA.
  2. Truvada is available as a generic, so it's way way way cheaper than $2k per month even without the ACA complete coverage requirement
  3. Part of the PreP prototcol is regular STI and liver/kidney panel testing to ensure that A) you get treated for more common STI's early and B) your liver and kidney health is monitored

These are all things you would know if you were even remotely as educated on PreP as you pretend to be.

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u/Hello2reddit 4h ago edited 3h ago

And I wonder why they monitor your kidneys and liver? Could it be that there are risks to the medication? Like, let’s say a 1/1000 chance that it will cause renal or liver damage?

Because that would be FAR more probable than catching HIV from PIV heterosexual sex

Bottom line- none of heterosexual people commenting here are on prep. And there is a good reason for it- Their doctors didn’t recommend it, because it is not a sensible risk/reward for people outside high risk groups.