Ryan White bill offers mixed bag for AIDS advocates
Ryan White bill offers mixed bag for AIDS advocates
By Louis Weisberg
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
Illinois AIDS advocates say there’s both good and bad news in the revised Ryan White CARE Act, the primary federal funding program for Americans living with HIV/AIDS.
The revisions—the first since 2000—were approved last week on a 19-1 vote by the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Only Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) opposed the measure, objecting to changes in the legislation that would shift the distribution of dollars from major urban centers such as New York and Chicago to areas where the impact of HIV is now growing.
The new distribution formulas were a response to complaints by lawmakers in some Southern and rural states that they have not received their fair share of federal AIDS money in the past. But Clinton said the changes, combined with an inadequate $30-million funding increase that’s included in the measure, could cost her state up to $20 million in funding.
Local AIDS advocates say Chicago also stands to lose money under the new Ryan White CARE Act. According to estimates by the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC), the city could lose $2.3 million or more next year, which would force the city to cut spending for essential HIV/AIDS care and support services by at least 10 percent.
But AFC expressed relief that the impending losses for Chicago and for Illinois were significantly lower than they would have been under preliminary versions of the bill, including one introduced in February by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). And they were especially pleased about a compromise agreement averting draconian cuts that would have caused a “devastating decline in available services,” according to AFC policy director Jim Pickett.
Those cuts could have resulted from a new Ryan White provision that calculates funding for locations based on their number of reported HIV cases rather than AIDS cases, which formed the basis for funding in the past. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only recognizes HIV cases that are reported by name, and until recently new diagnoses in Illinois were reported not by name but by unique identifier codes, in order to maintain patient anonymity.
Chicago AIDS advocates feared the names-reporting requirement would strip the state of most of its federal funding eligibility. But the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) helped to negotiate a compromise arrangement with the CDC that would base funding on an estimated number of HIV cases until 2009, when the state’s name-based HIV-surveillance system becomes fully operational.
AFC says there are about 42,000 people in Illinois living with HIV/AIDS.
“Allowing Illinois to approximate the number of its HIV cases is fair and a critically important provision of this bill,” said AFC associate director David Munar. “While lawmakers will continue to entertain changes, we implore members of Congress, especially those from Illinois, to safeguard this provision, which will put states like ours on equal footing with states that have established name-based HIV reporting systems.”
Pickett said that while AFC is concerned about the strain that funding cuts will put on HIV/AIDS-care providers in Illinois, “we remain thankful that the cuts are not deeper.”
The Ryan White CARE Act, first enacted in 1990, sends about $2 billion a year to state and local programs for AIDS drugs and care for the neediest patients. The revised legislation is expected to easily pass both the House and Senate in June and remain in effect until 2011.
‘By the numbers
Number of Americans living with HIV/AIDS:
1.1 million
Number of Illinoisans living with HIV/AIDS: 42,000
Current federal AIDS funding for Chicago:
$23 million
Federal funding that Chicago will lose under the new Ryan White CARE Act: $2.3 million
By Louis Weisberg
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
Illinois AIDS advocates say there’s both good and bad news in the revised Ryan White CARE Act, the primary federal funding program for Americans living with HIV/AIDS.
The revisions—the first since 2000—were approved last week on a 19-1 vote by the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Only Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) opposed the measure, objecting to changes in the legislation that would shift the distribution of dollars from major urban centers such as New York and Chicago to areas where the impact of HIV is now growing.
The new distribution formulas were a response to complaints by lawmakers in some Southern and rural states that they have not received their fair share of federal AIDS money in the past. But Clinton said the changes, combined with an inadequate $30-million funding increase that’s included in the measure, could cost her state up to $20 million in funding.
Local AIDS advocates say Chicago also stands to lose money under the new Ryan White CARE Act. According to estimates by the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC), the city could lose $2.3 million or more next year, which would force the city to cut spending for essential HIV/AIDS care and support services by at least 10 percent.
But AFC expressed relief that the impending losses for Chicago and for Illinois were significantly lower than they would have been under preliminary versions of the bill, including one introduced in February by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). And they were especially pleased about a compromise agreement averting draconian cuts that would have caused a “devastating decline in available services,” according to AFC policy director Jim Pickett.
Those cuts could have resulted from a new Ryan White provision that calculates funding for locations based on their number of reported HIV cases rather than AIDS cases, which formed the basis for funding in the past. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only recognizes HIV cases that are reported by name, and until recently new diagnoses in Illinois were reported not by name but by unique identifier codes, in order to maintain patient anonymity.
Chicago AIDS advocates feared the names-reporting requirement would strip the state of most of its federal funding eligibility. But the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) helped to negotiate a compromise arrangement with the CDC that would base funding on an estimated number of HIV cases until 2009, when the state’s name-based HIV-surveillance system becomes fully operational.
AFC says there are about 42,000 people in Illinois living with HIV/AIDS.
“Allowing Illinois to approximate the number of its HIV cases is fair and a critically important provision of this bill,” said AFC associate director David Munar. “While lawmakers will continue to entertain changes, we implore members of Congress, especially those from Illinois, to safeguard this provision, which will put states like ours on equal footing with states that have established name-based HIV reporting systems.”
Pickett said that while AFC is concerned about the strain that funding cuts will put on HIV/AIDS-care providers in Illinois, “we remain thankful that the cuts are not deeper.”
The Ryan White CARE Act, first enacted in 1990, sends about $2 billion a year to state and local programs for AIDS drugs and care for the neediest patients. The revised legislation is expected to easily pass both the House and Senate in June and remain in effect until 2011.
‘By the numbers
Number of Americans living with HIV/AIDS:
1.1 million
Number of Illinoisans living with HIV/AIDS: 42,000
Current federal AIDS funding for Chicago:
$23 million
Federal funding that Chicago will lose under the new Ryan White CARE Act: $2.3 million
posted by Carlos T Mock at 7:43 AM
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