For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
Justin Burke - 213.201.1525
COBURN BILL WOULD WEAKEN LOCAL CONTROL OVER HIV/AIDS
PROGRAMS
Advocates Credit Senator for Calls for Increased
Drug Funding, But Warn Focus on Primary Medical Care
Would Hurt the Poor
Los Angeles, Calif., February 28, 2006 – AIDS Project Los Angeles today called on Sen. Thomas Coburn (R-Okla.) to preserve, not weaken, local control and flexibility in his in his proposed bill to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act.
In a press conference in Washington Tuesday, the conservative Republican advocated mandating 75 percent of CARE Act funding for primary medical care in his proposed bill, leaving just 25 percent for vital support and other non-medical services.
“The Republicans have made ‘local control’ the mantra of their party,” said AIDS Project Los Angeles Executive Director Craig E. Thompson. “Yet Senator Coburn is advocating a top-down funding scheme that can only inhibit the local jurisdictions who know best how to spend their Ryan White funds.
“More importantly, this sort of mandate will also hurt the very groups -- such as women and communities of color -- that Sen. Coburn says he wants to help,” Thompson added. “Today, the majority of people living with HIV/AIDS are poor and marginalized people who need more, not fewer, support services. It doesn’t do any good to fund a medical clinic but take away the bus pass a poor person needs to get to her appointments.”
Coburn released his proposed bill in concert with Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), who will introduce the same bill in the House.
“In states such as California, Medicaid and the CARE Act-funded AIDS Drug Assistance Program do a good job of providing care and treatment to those who need it most,” Thompson said. “These states -- and cities like Los Angeles – should not be forced to cut back on vital support services such as mental health services, child care, food banks, treatment education and case management in order to satisfy an ill-considered mandate from Washington.”
At the same time, Thompson credited Sen. Coburn’s call for $70 million annually in new funding for the ADAP program over the five years of the reauthorization.
“It’s not enough to meet growing demand for this program,” Thompson said, “but it’s important recognition that the CARE Act in general and ADAP in particular have been under funded over the past four years.”
Thompson also cautioned the senator to reconsider his proposal to eliminate what the bill calls “double counting,” an apparent effort to redirect funding from urban centers of the epidemic, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, to states with more dispersed, often rural, epidemics.
“We’re all interested in equitable funding for all the states and cities,” Thompson said. “But Senator Coburn has based his argument on national funding inequities on incomplete data. Last June, the senator held a hearing on Titles I and II of the CARE Act, and promised he would follow up with a similar hearing on funding in Titles III and IV. But we’re still waiting for the additional data.”
Advocates contend that funding through the other titles of the CARE Act is often directed to resource poor areas and will help mitigate disparities that are evident in state and city grants. Title III of the CARE Act goes directly to community health centers and other providers of primary care, while Title IV funds care and support services for women, families and children
There are now more people than ever, more than 1.1 million Americans, living with HIV/AIDS. Because successful treatment has reduced AIDS-related deaths, the number of people living with AIDS, and often requiring Ryan White CARE Act services, grows by some 22,000 each year.
AIDS Project Los Angeles, one of the largest non-profit AIDS service organizations in the United States, provides bilingual direct services, prevention education and leadership on HIV/AIDS-related policy and legislation. Founded by four friends in 1982, APLA is a community-based, volunteer-supported organization with local, national and global reach. For more information, visit www.apla.org.
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