Juan Michael Porter spent nearly three months this year without his HIV medication because of an insurance snag. It costs $4,216 a month.

Marc Cohen can't remember the last time he attended a funeral of someone who died of AIDs.

He was diagnosed with the virus in 1987, when the first medication to treat HIV/AIDS, called AZT, was approved by the FDA. At about $8,000 a year, it was considered the most expensive drug in history.

Cohen watched most of his friends die of AIDS, attending 40 funerals in one year, he said.

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It's frightening to think we could return to those days, but Cohen and others living with HIV know the possibility is real with the passing of the Trump administration's "big, beautiful" budget bill, which includes sweeping changes to Medicaid. Millions of people are expected to lose coverage. More than 40% of people living with HIV rely on Medicaid for that medicine, according to AIDS United, a national advocacy group.

The treatment is still expensive, so without the insurance, many people living with HIV won’t have access to the care they need to keep them healthy. The HIV/AIDS epidemic death toll peaked in the U.S. in 1995, with more than 40,000 deaths.

"I'm very worried for myself and so many others," said Cohen, case manager at Jewish Family Services and a former project manager with AIDS Foundation Houston. "I'm concerned that rather than moving forward and seeing a decline in infection rates,........

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