Consider This: Low-cost solutions to the AIDS crisis
Friday, June 30th, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
by Brian Elderbroom
HIV/AIDS policy in North Carolina simply isn’t working.
Despite the strictest eligibility requirement in the country, hundreds of people have waited years for life-saving drugs in our state. Thousands more aren’t even eligible for the waiting list, because they make more than 125 percent of the federal poverty line – a little more than $12,000 per year. This is the worst eligibility level in the country, a far cry from the 300 percent deemed reasonable by our neighbors in South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia.
Both the N.C. Senate and House of Representatives have proposed raising the eligibility level to 250 percent of the poverty line in their 2007 budgets. But neither included additional funding to support the increase, leaving the state at the mercy of legislators in Washington (the program uses a mix of federal and state funds). And while these efforts should be applauded, they don’t address prevention and the growing number of infections each year.
Rather than paying for costly drugs once people are sick, the state should be doing more to prevent infections. Funding for the HIV Prevention Branch of the N.C. Division of Public Health is a meager $1.5 million annually. To meet the growing need for their education, testing, counseling and outreach programs, they need just $3.3 million in additional funds. Clearly, with a budget of more than $19 billion, legislators should be doing more. (more…)
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