Is Publix Anti-LGBT or Just Cheap?

When we lived in Florida Publix was our go-to supermarket; when we moved to South Carolina, we still shopped Publix, even though it was a thirty-minute drive one way to do so. Eventually, that got old, and we began shopping in town at a Food Lion and now I’m kinda glad about that.

It seems that Publix has chosen to deny its nearly 200,000 employees health insurance coverage for pre-exposure prophylaxis [PrEP], a medication that is highly effective at preventing HIV. To be fair, no one seems to know if Publix refusal to cover PrEP through their insurance program is just to save a few bucks, or if their refusal is some sort of cockeyed faith-based hate, but either way it's not a good look for the supermarket chain.

This all began when David Holland, a doctor serving as director of the Fulton County PrEP clinic in Atlanta, was unable to get a Publix employee PrEP through the company’s health insurance. He called the insurance provider directly and discovered that the refusal came from the employer, not the insurance provider; Publix does not want PrEP covered under their insurance program.

When Publix headquarters was asked about it, they released a statement saying their “generous medical and prescription coverage” covered “numerous medications … used in the treatment of HIV,” adding, “There are some medications that have coverage limitations or require prior authorization.”

Maybe so, maybe not; two things come to mind, the first of which is that Publix is a billion-dollar corporation and they could provide access to PrEP through their insurance if they wanted to do so; and secondly, providing just one PrEP prescription to an HIV-negative employee is far cheaper than providing a lifetime of medications and healthcare to an HIV-positive employee.

I mean, it doesn’t get simpler.

But Publix is a ultra-conservative company that has made donations to anti-LGBT GOP political candidates, funded campaigns against legalized cannabis and has a score pf Zero on the Human Rights Campaign’s analysis of workplace fairness, in addition to being accused of multiple instances firing openly gay employees.

I guess the idea that they refuse to cover PrEP expenses in their health insurance is just part of the way they do business … the business of discriminating against the LGBT community.

Hornet