By RICHARD HACK / TALLAHASSEE, Fl. —Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation signed an agreement with Humana, the nationwide health provider, to reduce HIV/AIDS drug prices in the state for its members. Previously, Humana expected its members to pay 40-50 percent of the drugs costs. That amount has now been capped to 10 percent.

“This is a significant step,” Carl Schmid, deputy executive director of the Tampa-based AIDS Institute, told the Miami Herald. The AIDS Institute which file a federal discrimination complaint against Humana and three other insurers in May. That suit is still on-going.

Schmid told the Miami Herald that the deal is a “recognition of the fact that Humana was making these drugs much too expensive for people with HIV to afford.”

Humana denied all wrongdoing in the agreement with the state.

“We understand the affordability challenges facing those with HIV/AIDS due to the relatively high cost of their specialty medications,” Mitch Lubitz, a spokesman for Humana, told the Miami Herald.

The federal complaint, which was filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights, accused Humana, Coventry Healthcare, Cigna and Preferred Medical Plan of discriminating against HIV/AIDS by making their life-saving drugs unaffordable to the majority of its members.

Rachel Seeger, a spokeswoman for HHS, confirmed that the federal government was still investigating the complaint. The state had in recent weeks also come to agreements with Cigna and Coventry Healthcare.

But Schmid said the Humana deal went further in protecting consumers because the cost reductions applied to all HIV medications. The Cigna and Coventry agreements only included four drugs.

As part of the deals, the insurers also agreed to move HIV drugs out of their highest cost pricing “tier.”

“This does not solve all our problems,” Schmid said. “This is good news for people in Florida but we are looking for the federal government to address this issue around the nation.”

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