An estimated 16,000 people living with HIV in Florida are at risk of losing access to HIV/AIDS medications after the state’s Department of Health (DOH) issued an emergency rule that will drastically reduce the number of people who are eligible for the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP).

The emergency rule, issued last week and taking effect on March 1, reduces income eligibility for the ADAP — which, since 1996, has helped low-income people afford HIV and AIDS medication — from 400% of the federal poverty level to 130%, the Tampa Bay Times and other outlets reported.

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As a result, people living with HIV in Florida who make more than approximately $20,500 annually — down from around $64,000 prior to the rule change — are now ineligible to receive ADAP assistance for medication that, according to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF). HIV medications can cost more than $5,000 per month, The Washington Post noted.

The Florida DOH filed the emergency rule last Tuesday, the day before a hearing in a lawsuit brought by AHF over similar changes to ADAP eligibility that the department announced in January. In its challenge, AHF accused the health department of violating state laws regulating such rule-making.

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“The Department spent two months cutting people off without following the law. When we took them to court, they filed an emergency rule at midnight to dodge accountability,” Esteban Wood, AHF’s director of advocacy and legislative affairs, told CBS News.

In a February 26 press release, the AHF said it had filed an amended legal motion to block the DOH from implementing its emergency rule.

“DOH is in such a hurry to take away lifesaving medical care from 16,000 Floridians that they declared an ‘emergency’ so they could do it even quicker,” AHF general counsel and chief of public affairs Tom Myers said in a statement.

In January, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo justified the cutbacks, claiming they are necessary to avoid a $120 million budget shortfall. Ladapo cited rising healthcare costs, the expiration of COVID-era Affordable Care Act subsidies, and expected cuts to the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990, which funds the ADAP through federal grants.

But in addition to the eligibility changes, the Florida DOH also announced in January that it would end an ADAP program that helps people living with HIV purchase health insurance — a major source of revenue for the ADAP through rebates received from drug companies. Health insurance premium rebates accounted for two-thirds of ADAP’s funding, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

While the expiration of the enhanced premium Affordable Care Act tax credits has driven up premium costs, ending the ADAP’s insurance assistance program nonetheless cuts off its largest revenue source, the outlet added.

Federal data shows that Florida has the third-highest rates of new HIV cases in the U.S., as The Washington Post noted last month. Meanwhile, experts say that cutting people off from HIV medication — which not only keeps them alive and healthy, but also makes it nearly impossible for them to transmit the disease to others — is short-sighted.

“For those that are concerned about cost, it costs a whole lot more to take care of somebody who is sick than to put them on medicine and keep them well,” Dr. Bob Bollinger, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the Tampa Bay Times.

Similarly, state Sen. Shevrin Jones (D) said Florida risks turning “a preventable budget issue into a preventable public health emergency.”

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