Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle - The Voice of the West, 901 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94119 - Tuesday, August 5, 1997 - Page A18
Some of them cannot afford it.
Here's the problem:
The cost of drug treatment can approach $1,800 a month. Medi-Cal covers the cost of prescriptions for an AIDS patient on state disability. If that same person were to return to work, he or she almost certainly would face a waiting period or dollar limits on prescription coverage -- or might not be offered any health benefits at all.
So the recovering AIDS patient too often is left in an untenable situation: return to work and face a severe financial strain or remain on disability to continue receiving life-saving drugs.
Assemblywoman Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, has come up with a plan that would achieve the important goal -- of compassion, economics and good medicine -- of getting these healthy people back to work. Her bill, AB 1099, would extend Medi-Cal coverage for people with HIV/AIDS and other diseases who return to work.
Migden's measure provides reasonable fiscal safeguards for the state by requiring higher-paid workers (more than $2,500 a month initially) to share in the cost of their health costs. The transitional Medi-Cal coverage would stop once the worker became eligible for full medical insurance coverage. The bill, which cleared the Assembly on a 77-to-1 vote, is now awaiting a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"This bill turns a state expense into state revenue," said Migden, pointing out that a person who leaves the disability rolls would pay sales and income taxes -- and possibly a percentage of their treatment costs, depending on salary level.
State government should be doing everything it can to encourage healthy people to work. The Senate should approve this common-sense approach that would allow more people to become self-sufficient.
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