AEGiS-WSJ: AIDS Bill Faces Serious Hurdles

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

AIDS Bill Faces Serious Hurdles

Wall Street Journal - September 8, 2006
Sarah Lueck

Senate aides say they're close to a bipartisan deal on the contentious reworking of the Ryan White CARE Act, which funds AIDS treatment in the states. Unless Congress passes a bill by Oct. 1, several states risk a drop in federal funding under the program.

Even with the deadline looming, negotiations between the House and Senate committees and the Bush administration have been difficult. One aide likened the infighting between cities and rural areas, northern states and those in the South, to a "civil war."

Draft legislation circulated this week strikes a compromise on several of the most controversial issues in the protracted talks, which are meant to update the program, named for a young hemophiliac who died of AIDS. To satisfy calls for greater HIV testing without cutting into funds for treatment, the bill would set up a $30 million grant program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that states could tap for testing. Overall, states would be able to use 25% of the funds for services other than care and treatment, such as nutrition and transportation, or they could use all the money for treatment if they already provide those services through programs such as Medicaid.

States that use codes to track HIV and AIDS patients would get more time to switch to systems using patients' names, and patients identified by codes would still be counted in the formula that determines funding-a boon to states such as California, Massachusetts and Washington. Still, states would have to switch to a name-based AIDS tracking system by 2011.

It remains to be seen whether state governors, HIV patient-advocacy groups and other members of Congress will back the deal. For the states, much depends on their funding level.

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