Area(s) of Expertise: Prescription drugs, Medicaid managed care, eligibility using Modified Adjusted Gross Income, nondiscrimination protections and enforcement.
Wayne Turner is a Senior Attorney in the National Health Law Program’s Washington, D.C., offices, where he focuses on access to outpatient prescription drugs, nondiscrimination enforcement, eligibility using Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) methodologies, consumer protections in managed care, and the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) program.
Wayne currently serves as a consumer representative to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches a seminar class on LGBT Health Law and Policy. Wayne came to the National Health Law Program from the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, where he worked on Blue Cross Blue Shield reform, children’s health, and improving end of life care for District of Columbia residents.
Wayne is a longtime HIV/AIDS and healthcare consumer advocate. Before making the transition to a legal career, he spent more than a decade working to advance the health care rights of at risk populations. He co-founded ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in Washington, DC, and successfully lobbied to include greater consumer participation and accountability measures in Ryan White CARE Act-funded services. He also ran the campaign for DC’s Initiative 59, which provides legal protections for seriously ill patients and caregivers and was approved by voters in 1998.
Wayne earned his B.A. at Reed College and graduated magna cum laude from the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law. In law school, Wayne worked as a fellow in the HIV/ AIDS Legal Clinic, where he prepared living wills and standby guardianships for clients with HIV/AIDS and their children. He is a member of the DC Bar Health Law Section.
Wayne is featured in the 2011 PBS documentary Out in America, in which he describes the impact of the AIDS pandemic on the LGBT community through his personal account of losing his life-partner Steve to the disease.
