Four More Years

Now that the 2012 election is over, the AIDS community needs to get back to work.  We have an epidemic to end.  This is something we can do.  It is something we must do, but there are some fundamental things that we have to do to get it done.  Quite frankly (to use the cliché) this election is not the end, it's the beginning.

The President asked for four more years. He said that if he got a second term, he would get the job done. Well, he has gotten his wish and some of us worked very hard to make it happen. Since the President now has no concerns about reelection, we need to press him on getting the unfinished HIV business done.

1) We need to push aggressively and quickly to fully implement the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We need to not only make sure that the ACA benchmarks for implementation are met, but to also make sure that the ACA is appropriately resourced and there are proper protections for PLWHA. This includes appropriate elements in the essential benefits package, wrestling decisions away from the states and creating a universal floor on what these packages have to look like.  The ACA states that the Secretary of Health shall establish the essential benefits packages. The administration has been planning to delegate this authority to state government, which would be devastating for people living with HIV/AIDS in many southern states.  We have to guarantee that the essential benefits packages serve the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS.

2) Implementation of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS). We've made some progress but not nearly enough. There's no point in having a plan if we don't follow it. We also know now -- 2-1/2 years after the plan was introduced -- some things that we didn't know when the plan was originally released. The NHAS needs to be modified to reflect the current state of AIDS in America, including figuring out how to maximize biomedical interventions and integrate those interventions into our prevention efforts.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill