Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - December 9, 2006
The House early Saturday agreed by voice vote to renew the $2.1 billion annual Ryan White CARE Act. The Senate passed the bill earlier in the week after senators from New York and New Jersey dropped their opposition, accepting a compromise that settled months of dispute just as Congress adjourned for the year.
Lawmakers from some urban areas feared losing money under a five-year renewal of the law. The final deal renews it for three years. That allows earlier reviews of the formulas for distributing money and eliminates the large dollar cuts in the final years that threatened some areas.
"This legislation focuses on lifesaving and life-extending services and increased accountability, and will provide more flexibility to the secretary of Health and Human Services to direct funding to areas of greatest need," Bush said in a statement Saturday.
AIDS began as a big-city epidemic, the disease infecting gay white men for the most part. Today, it is prevalent in the South and among minorities. The updates, the first since 2000, aim to spread money more equally around the U.S.
Current law only counts patients with full-blown AIDS. The revision also counts patients with the HIV virus who have not developed AIDS. That change favors the South and rural areas, for example, where the disease is a newer phenomenon.
Alabama expects to gain some $7 million in the first year of the new law; New York would lose about $8 million.
"We have addressed the epidemic of today, not yesterday, by modernizing the Ryan White CARE Act to ensure federal funds follow the person being treated - wherever they live," said Republican Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
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