Ryan White Bill Could Be Improved, Says AHF
LOS ANGELES, May 17 /PRNewswire/ — AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the nation’s largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care serving thousands of patients at 14 healthcare centers in California and Florida, today commended the progress made by the Senate HELP (Health, Labor, Education and Pensions) Committee during its mark up of a draft bill to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act (RWCA), the nation’s premier AIDS program that is the principle source of funding for AIDS care and services, and urged the Committee to narrow the definition of “core medical services.” The bill proposes that 75% of funding be directed toward core medical services; however, core medical services as currently defined in the draft bill, include such non-traditional services as medical transportation, mental health services and substance abuse services. AHF believes that a narrower definition would ensure that more people in need would have access to lifesaving AIDS treatment and would also ensure better use of limited CARE Act funds. AHF also believes that some of those non-traditional services belong under the CARE Act’s “support services” funding category.
“While today’s negotiations and the current markup represent progress on the reauthorization of the CARE Act, AHF believes there is still room for improvement, particularly with regard to the definition of core medical services in the bill,” said Michael Weinstein, AHF’s President. “While we applaud the HELP Committee for prioritizing medical care with its recommendation of a 75% funding floor, we urge them to narrow the definition of what constitutes core medical services. With forty thousand new infections in the US every year, it’s crucial that we do everything to break the chain of infection while providing basic medical care to all those living with HIV/AIDS who need it. We will not be able to meet those goals unless we really focus our efforts and limited resources on clearly defined primary medical care.”
Late last year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that for the first time, more than one million Americans were living with HIV. Almost half of those infected are not consistently accessing care and treatment, and more than one quarter of the million nationwide are unaware they are infected with HIV. AHF supports the CDC’s recent recommendation to move toward routine HIV testing, and hopes that provisions will be made in the reauthorized CARE Act to support the routine offering of HIV testing in an effort to de-stigmatize the disease and bring more people into treatment.
“To meet the care and treatment needs of people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S., AHF urges a strict and clearer definition of core medical services which occur ‘under the clinic roof,’ and we also urge an annual increase of $100 million annually for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program,” added AHF’s Weinstein.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation
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