ETHA and Medicaid

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
President Bush’s last federal budget seals
his dismal record on domestic HIV/AIDS funding

Ryan Clary, Director of Public Policy, 415-558-8669 x224

February 4, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Project Inform today sharply criticized President Bush for releasing another proposed budget that underfunds vital domestic HIV/AIDS care, treatment, research, prevention and housing programs.

“While we are not surprised to see another budget that short changes people with HIV/AIDS, we take comfort in the fact that it is the final proposal we will have to endure from this President,” said Ryan Clary, Director of Public Policy. “We hope the years of chronic underfunding of HIV/AIDS programs will soon be over. Congress should reject this budget immediately and show the leadership desperately needed to make sure people with HIV have the care and treatment needed to stay alive and healthy.”

The budget proposes a meager $1 million increase for the Ryan White Program, which funds lifesaving care and treatment services for low-income, underinsured people with HIV/AIDS. Ryan White has been underfunded for years, with many states and localities forced to create waiting lists and other barriers to access treatment and care. This underfunding is made all the worse by the fact that, as people with HIV live longer and up to 60,000 more Americans become infected with HIV each year, the demand for Ryan White services is rising dramatically.

Additionally, the President is proposing flat funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds vital research for HIV/AIDS and other diseases, the Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS (HOPWA) program, and HIV/AIDS prevention and testing programs.

The President has yet again called for major cuts in spending ($200 million over five years) on Medicaid and Medicare, which provide health care to the most medically vulnerable people in the nation. These programs are the two largest payers of health care for people with HIV/AIDS. Medicaid alone serves over 55% of people living with AIDS.

“This is President Bush’s final attack on Medicaid, a program he has tried to gut for years,” said Anne Donnelly, Director of Health Care Policy. “In this economy, states need more federal Medicaid funding to protect current services, not less.”

Project Inform pledged to work with its national advocacy partners to defeat this harmful budget proposal and to support a Fiscal Year 2009 appropriations bill with meaningful increases to all HIV/AIDS programs.