| April
14, 2006
This Week in Washington
1. Congress Continues Spring Recess
2. Congressional Black Caucus Hosts Meeting on Healthcare Disparities
3. Ryan White CARE Act Appropriations Letter Sign-on – Deadline:
April 24th
Announcements
1. NAPWA to Hold AIDSWatch 2006 from May 8 - 10
This Week in Washington
1. Congress Continues Spring Recess
Both the Senate and House of Representatives recessed for two
weeks on Friday, April 7th. The official Spring Recess is from
Monday, April 10th until Friday, April 21st. Since Congress does
not normally schedule votes on Monday, most Senators and Representatives
will continue to be in their States and Districts until Tuesday,
April 26th. This is an ideal time to schedule meetings in the
district and state with Members of Congress and staff.
The House Clerk’s calendar is located here:
http://majoritywhip.house.gov/calendar.asp
(The Senate has not produced a similar easily readable calendar)
2. Congressional Black Caucus Hosts Meeting
on Healthcare Disparities
On April 6th, The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc.
and the Louis Stokes Urban Health Policy Fellowship Program co-hosted
a policy briefing and panel discussion on racial and ethnic health
disparities. The panel, which was put together in recognition
of National Minority Health Month, was attended by Congresswoman
Donna Christensen (D-VI) who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus
Health Braintrust along with Congressional staffers and health
policy advocates.
Members of the panel included Monica Lathan
of the American Public Health Association who pointed out that
the issue of disparities for minorities has been documented in
a diverse array of medical issues. For example African Americans
and Latinos who have higher incidence of asthma and obesity than
whites, while Asians are less likely to receive mental health
care. Since it puts little focus on prevention, “our ‘health care’
system is really a ‘sick care’ system,” she said. Aranthan Jones
a Democratic staff member of the House Committee on Ways and Means
suggested three practical legislative solutions to the issue of
healthcare disparities. First, he told the audience that there
needed to be more minority staffers on the Hill. Second he said
that the issue of disparities crossed jurisdictional lines (for
example the Judiciary Committee and the Energy and Commerce Health
Subcommittee both need to look at the issue of health disparities)
and that there was a need for “an overarching body” or person
to take this issue on. Finally he said that there was a need to
better understand the issue from a funding perspective.
Dr. Claudia Baquet from the University of Maryland
spoke about the need to promote and ensure access to care by helping
seniors and others understand and navigate the intricacies of
their Medicaid policies and also by creating grant programs that
provide stable funding to grassroots health organizations for
at least 10 – 15 years rather than the 3-5 years that they currently
receive. Dr. Marsha Lillie-Blanton from the Henry J. Kaiser Family
Foundation noted that a recent study had shown that a lack of
insurance coverage was the single largest factor (although not
the only factor) in explaining disparities. Simply finding ways
to ensure that people get access to similar coverage would start
to reduce some of the disparities she said.
Brian Smedley, of “The Opportunity Agenda” (a
communications, research and advocacy firm) spoke about his concern
that there were now organizations that had started to work to
dismiss evidence of healthcare disparities. One recent study picked
up by the media claimed that African Americans received better
basic primary care than others, but 2 studies showing the opposite
had been ignored. Mr. Smedley said that he was concerned that
one result of this coverage is that Americans are coming to accept
deeper tiered systems of healthcare and the resulting differing
outcomes as being ok. Finally, Darrell J. Gaskin of the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health noted that significantly
increased rates of mortality among minorities come with costs
not only in lost earnings but in human costs that transmit down
through generations. He recommended three policies including “cradle
to grave” access to universal healthcare, ensuring that providers
in poor and minority communities serve the highest level of healthcare
and working on related issues such as poverty. High levels of
income and wealth, he noted, are correlated with better health.
The panel was put together by William Garner,
the Louis Stokes Urban Health Policy Fellow who has been assigned
as a Democratic staffer to the House Energy and Commerce Committee
to work on healthcare policy issues including reauthorization
of the Ryan White CARE Act.
3. Ryan White CARE Act
Appropriations Letter Sign-on
HIV advocates working on Fiscal Year 2007 appropriations released
an organizational sign-on letter on Tuesday April 11 urging President
Bush and Congress to support the community's funding request for
the Ryan White CARE Act. The letter discusses chronic underfunding
in the CARE Act and makes funding requests for all of the Titles
and Part F. AIDS Action agreed to sign on to the letter on April
14th.
It is still possible to sign on to the
letter. To do so, e-mail Ryan Clary, rclary@projectinform.org,
with the name of your organization, city/state, and contact person.
The deadline to sign on is 5 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Monday
April 24th. The letter reads:
Dear President Bush and Members of
Congress:
The undersigned organizations are writing
to urge your support for increased funding for the Ryan White
Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act for Fiscal
Year 2007.
The Ryan White CARE Act provides lifesaving
and life enhancing care, treatment, and support services to
hundreds of thousands of low-income, uninsured, and under-insured
people living with HIV/AIDS around the country. It is the final
safety net for Americans who have no other means of accessing
these services and continues to serve as a model health care
program.
However, the CARE Act suffers
from inadequate funding, leaving many states and localities
unable to meet the needs of those who depend on these services.
Except for modest, yet insufficient, increases for the AIDS
Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), the CARE Act has been cut for
the past three years. Title I has been cut by $15 million, Title
II base by $9 million, Title III by $5 million, and Title IV
by $2 million. Meanwhile, there are approximately 40,000 new
HIV infections per year, increasing the number of people who
need CARE Act-funded services.
The chronic underfunding of the
CARE Act has resulted in significant barriers to accessing care,
treatment, and support services. According to the National Alliance
of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD), as of January
2006, eighteen states have implemented restrictions to treatment
access through their ADAP, including waiting lists in ten states.
Seven states are anticipating new or additional ADAP restrictions
in the next few months. Many localities and states have been
forced to reduce care and support services funded by CARE Act
Title I and Title II dollars.
We believe that the Fiscal Year
2007 appropriations process is an opportunity to change this
situation and place the needs of people with HIV/AIDS as a priority
for the nation. To that end, we urge your support for the following
funding increases to the Ryan White CARE Act:
Title
I: $184.1 million increase; $788.1 million total
CARE Act Title I funds health
care and support services in 51 U.S. urban areas most adversely
affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This increase would expand
access to these services and help address the disparity in outcomes,
access, and utilization of care and treatment by people of color
living with HIV/AIDS.
Title
II base: $70 million increase; $401 million total
CARE Act Title II base funds care
and support services in all 50 states, U.S. Territories, and
Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This increase
would help states restore services lost to cuts over the years,
address increased demand for these services, as well as rising
medical inflation.
Title
II ADAP: $197 million increase; $986.2 million total
The AIDS Drug Assistance Program,
a line item within Title II, provides access to treatment for
people with HIV/AIDS. This increase would help eliminate ADAP
waiting lists and other barriers to treatment access, while
allowing states to provide a full range of HIV drugs to those
in need.
Title
III: $76.9 million increase; $270.5 million total
CARE Act Title III
provides direct grants to over 360 community-based primary health
clinics and public health providers in rural and urban communities.
This increase would address the increasing costs of providing
primary health care services to uninsured people living with HIV.
Title
IV: $41.25 million increase; $113.25 million total
CARE Act Title IV funds HIV care,
psychosocial, and other essential services to women, infants,
children, and youth. This funding increase would help further
reduce the rates of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, target
care towards adolescents who are HIV-positive, and expand Title
IV projects to additional communities in crisis, thus increasing
access to care and treatment for women and children living with
HIV/AIDS.
Part
F (AIDS Education and Training Centers): $15.3 million increase;
$50 million total
CARE Act Part F (AETCs) provides
HIV clinical training, consultation, and technical assistance
as part of the Ryan White CARE Act to improve clinical outcomes,
enhance access to care, and build clinical capacity in urban,
rural, and medically-underserved areas. This increase would
help AETC further its legislative mandate to train health care
providers, faculty, and students who care for people with HIV/AIDS
outside traditional health professions education venues.
Part
F (Dental Reimbursement Program and Community-based Dental Partnerships
Program): $5.9 million increase; $19 million total
People with compromised immune
systems, such as those living with HIV/AIDS, are more prone
to oral infections such as periodontal disease and tooth decay.
CARE Act Part F (Dental) provides diagnostic and preventive
oral health care at academic dental institutions. This increase
would insure access to quality dental care from dental practitioners
trained to provide care for people with HIV/AIDS.
Special
Projects of National Significance (SPNS): $25 million total
The SPNS Program advances knowledge
and skills in the delivery of health and support services to
underserved populations diagnosed with HIV infection. SPNS grants
fund innovative models of care and support the development of
effective delivery systems for HIV care and is considered the
research and development arm of the Ryan White CARE Act.
In his State of the Union address,
President Bush stated that “A hopeful society acts boldly to
fight diseases like HIV/AIDS, which can be prevented, and treated,
and defeated.” We urge you to match his strong words by funding
the Ryan White CARE Act at the appropriate level to provide
the care, treatment, and support services needed to fight this
epidemic.
Thank you for considering this
request.
Signed: (list in formation)
Announcements
1. NAPWA To Hold AIDSWatch 2006 from May 8 - 10
The National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA) will hold
AIDSWatch, its annual DC-based advocacy event, from Monday, May
8 to Wednesday, May 10. Each year, NAPWA invites people living
with HIV to Washington, DC, where they first participate in advocacy
training sessions and then take their stories, new skills, and
updated materials to Capitol Hill. While on Capitol Hill, participants
meet with Members of Congress and their staffs to urge them to
strengthen essential health care programs—like the Ryan White
CARE Act, Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, and Medicaid/Medicare—through
increases in funding and improvements in legislation.
This year, AIDSWatch will also assist individuals
unable to travel to Washington, DC with the scheduling of meetings
closer to home, in the district offices of their Members of Congress.
Interested parties may learn more about this
year’s AIDSWatch by linking to http://www.napwa.org/aidswatch.html
and may register for AIDSWatch at http://www.napwa.org/register_online.html.
Individuals who have questions, cannot register
online, or wish to talk their plans over may contact High Noon
Communications, toll-free, at 1-866-243-7282 or by sending an
email to becky@highnooncommunications.com.
The AIDS Action Weekly Update
The Weekly Update is written with
a mind toward the interests of our members. If you are interested
in membership with AIDS Action, we invite you to contact members@aidsaction.org.
AIDS Action works
to end the HIV epidemic by advancing public policies that
prevent new infections, provide care for people living with
HIV, and support the search for a cure. AIDS Action serves
as the national voice for people living with HIV and represents
AIDS service organizations, health departments, and a diverse
network of community-based organizations across the country. |
|
