Stimulus Update
Don’t let Collins and co. stall public health funding!
As of Thursday night, the Senate’s stimulus plan is still up in the air, but $5.8 billion for rebuilding the U.S. public health infrastructure is in serious danger. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) are working on an amendment that would gut this funding as part of an $80 billion trim of the stimulus package. We can’t let that happen! This investment in public health funding would create jobs and make a long-term investment in the U.S’s haphazard public health infrastructure.
Take Action: Contact your senators now: 202-224-3121. Ask for your senator by name. Not sure who your senators are? Go to http://capwiz.com/aac/dbq/officials to find out!
STDs and AIDS prevention demonized
The $5.8 billion for public health money originally included $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to use for STD and HIV prevention. But Monday the Senate took out that specific line of funding. $350 billion for HIV and STD prevention passed through the House of Representatives bill. After the funding received a lot of bad press, the Senate caved and removed the language. The House and the Senate will need to reconcile their two bills.
“I question some of the motives of some of the members who went after funding for prevention,” said AIDS Institute Director of Federal Affairs Carl Schmid. They just don’t want STD and HIV funding. Other members do say we need to have it, but not in this bill. Prevention is one area where the Congress has failed to invest in the last couple of years.”
Republicans aren’t the only culprits. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) told Huffington Post last week, “Whether it is the National Endowment of the Arts or some of the STD funding or contraceptive funding, all we did was just tee up ammunition for the other side to tear this thing down.”
But McCaskill and others neglect to note that HIV and STD prevention would save money long-term and there are estimates that this would create 2,000 jobs for outreach workers and other jobs in the prevention field.
“We have to recognize that HIV prevention is work,” said David Munar, vice president of policy and communications at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. “The idea of dedicating money in this bill is as an investment in the infrastructure. It is as valid as creating a road.” Munar noted that people getting sick is also an investment—it’s a $350,000 lifetime cost for medicating a single person with AIDS—but, he said, “that’s not the kind of investment we want to have to make.”
Although the HIV/STD money was thrown under the bus by the Senate, on Thursday the Congressional Black Caucus issued a statement supporting the need for HIV and STD prevention dollars.
“We should not cut funding for HIV/AIDS services when the AIDS virus is spreading faster than previously thought, and minority communities are continuing to suffer. As local sources of funding dry up, communities need assistance to reach people who are at risk of HIV/AIDS, make HIV testing available, and provide life-saving treatment to those who need it,” said Congresswoman Maxine Waters, co-chair of the CBC HIV/AIDS Task Force. “Without these services, the AIDS virus could spread even more quickly as the economy deteriorates.”
Still, it is unlikely STD and HIV funding will be included in the final stimulus bill, so right now advocates are focusing their efforts on saving the $5.8 billion in public health dollars.
“We have to keep our eye on the prize,” Munar said. “This is a winnable battle.”
Posted on February 5, 2009 at 12:56 am
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