Wedding do's and don'ts
ARTS
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Romeo speaks
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My Bawdy Valentine
The
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Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
Vol. 45 • No. 7 • February 12-18, 2015
Jane Warner Plaza to close for redesign Rick Gerharter
Kaiser has changed some of its prescription coverage for HIV medications.
Kaiser changes HIV drug coverage by Seth Hemmelgarn
P
eople living with HIV/AIDS and advocates are concerned about increased costs for medications since Kaiser Permanente and other insurers have begun requiring people to pay a percentage of the cost of their drugs, rather than a copay amount. Larry Hickey, chief financial officer for Steamworks, pointed to what’s happening at his company as an example of the concerns caused by the change. Hickey filed a complaint with Kaiser earlier this month after learning of the practice. In an interview, Hickey said an employee came to him after being “hit with a $900 bill for one month’s supply” of HIV drugs. Steamworks has one policy with Kaiser for its bathhouse in Berkeley and another for its office in San Francisco. In the Bay Area, the company has 36 employees, with 28 on the Kaiser policies. Kaiser is one of the Bay Area’s largest health insurers. In 2014, there was a $35 copay for generic drugs and a $50 copay for brand name drugs for both policies. The company renewed the plans for 2015, effective January 1. The copays remain, but “Kaiser created a new category called ‘specialty drugs,’ and instead of a copay, they have a 20 percent co–insurance [rate], which means each time someone fills a prescription of a specialty drug, they must pay 20 percent of the cost of that drug,” said Hickey. He calculated that 80 percent of brand name HIV drugs have been moved to the new tier. “This is huge for these guys that are HIV-positive,” Hickey, who doesn’t know how many employees are living with HIV, said of the workers. “Most of our employees at our Berkeley club are hourly employees,” he said. “There’s no way they can afford those kind of coinsurance” rates. “We put them on a gold plan so this kind of thing would not happen,” said Hickey See page 16 >>
by David-Elijah Nahmod
J
ane Warner Plaza at Castro and Market streets, which just underwent renovation as part of a $6 million sidewalk-widening project, will close in late February so that it can be redesigned following what officials and residents say is “really bad behavior” that has been occurring since the beginning of the year. At a sometimes tense meeting last week, residents said they were fed up with the
anti-social behavior and that the plaza was not honoring the memory of the woman for whom it was named, lesbian San Francisco Patrol Special Police Officer Jane Warner, who died of cancer in 2010. While several attendees at the February 2 meeting called for a permanent closure of the space, gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener said he opposed that idea. See page 16 >>
Two young people horsed around in the planter boxes in Jane Warner Plaza January 31 as they allowed their dog into the box. Rick Gerharter
Trans stabbing victim mourned at rally by Seth Hemmelgarn
pected of killing DeJesus, but she said police know who the suspect is, and ozens took part in a “die-in” he “is not a threat to public safety.” outside San Francisco City The investigation remains “open Hall Tuesday at a rally atand active,” said Gatpandan. The tended by more than 200 people as case is not being investigated as a police continue their investigation hate crime. into the stabbing death of a Latina Danielle Castro, 39, a transgentransgender woman in the Bayview der woman who knew DeJesus for neighborhood. over a decade, said, “She was just The mourners at Trans Liberation very light-hearted, funny, and just a Tuesday used the rally to call attenbeautiful, gentle soul.” tion to violence against transgender DeJesus was also religious, said women of color in San Francisco Castro. and other cities. “She would always say, ‘God bless Meanwhile, friends said that Taja you,’” she said. “It was like her faith DeJesus, 36, who was found dead was central to her.” February 1, was a “beautiful,” deeply Rick Gerharter Jen Arens, a social worker at the religious person, but she also suffered Participants at the Trans Liberation Tuesday rally outside San Salvation Army near where DeJesus harassment and housing problems Francisco City Hall lay down in a “die-in” to remember stabbing was killed, said she’d known DeJesimilar to what many trans people face. victim Taja DeJesus and other trans people lost to violence. sus for almost three years. A police summary said officers “She just showed up one day” and responding to the scene found DeJetold people at a Bible study, “I want sus in a stairway in the 1400 block of Days later, citing unnamed police sources, SF to tell you my favorite scripture McKinnon Avenue. Weekly reported that the suspect had hanged verse,” said Arens. The passage involved women A Bayview police station newsletter said, “ofhimself in the 4000 block of Third Street Mon- saving the world and the other women in the ficers were provided with the unit number and day, February 2. group “just loved her after that.” were informed that the suspect was still inside.” According to the medical examiner’s office, DeJesus “was definitely one of those people They found DeJesus inside the unit “with multhe man has been identified as James Hayes, 49, who would always put others first, always,” said tiple stab wounds.” Paramedics pronounced her a “Bay Area resident with no confirmed address Arens, who fought back tears as she spoke. dead at the scene. at this time.” “She was brilliant, and I’m not just saying “The suspect had fled prior to the officers’ Officer Grace Gatpandan, a police spokeswomthat,” she said. arrival, but is believed to have been identified,” an, said Tuesday afternoon, February 10 that she See page 13 >> police said. couldn’t confirm whether Hayes was the man sus-
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