In This Issue

I don't know if it is a fiscal cliff or a fiscal curb or a fiscal hill. But it is a little disheartening that after a long election season that culminated in an election in which we the people were very clear that we supported a balanced approach to solving our economic problems -- one that included higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans and prudent cuts in spending without eviscerating critical health services for the middle class. Last week house speaker Boehner responded to a proposal from the White House with a proposal that cut $600 billion from health expenditures but does not raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.

We are at a deciding moment in the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic. We are either going to decide to do what's necessary to end the epidemic in this country or we're going to decide to continue to see American citizens get infected, get sick and die from AIDS.

I'm going to believe that the house speaker and other Republicans in the House of Representatives understand neither the opportunities before us nor truly what's at stake. The HIV/AIDS community cannot be absent from this debate. It is absolutely imperative that everyone who is interested in ending the AIDS epidemic communicate with our elected officials and let them know that we cannot afford to pull back on our investment in healthcare and health services at the very moment when we have the potential to end the epidemic.

In this issue we run the first of our two-part look at the year's most compelling events, from the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act to the International AIDS Conference taking place in the U.S.

Colorlines' Akiba Solomon suggests ways in which we can use social media to normalize HIV/AIDS. Ramon Gardenhire of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago reports on the success Illinois activists have had in making that state's very punitive laws criminalizing HIV transmission less onerous. We look at our government's activity on World AIDS Day and Kaiser Health News's analysis of the latest challenges to the Affordable Care Act.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill