HIV Death Panel

Just Don’t Call It a ‘Death Panel’

As Florida Announces ADAP Waiting List, Heat Turns Up on Obama Admin

The Obama Administration seems to have a back-log of gay-related legislative issues to tackle.
Most recently emerging is the call to increase ADAP funding. ADAP stands for
The AIDS Drug Assistance Program – a means for low-income persons to obtain
life-saving HIV medications.

Because ADAP funding has remained constant but the number of persons seeking
assistance has grown by 25%, there are shortages in coverage. According to
Tom Liberti, Chief of the Bureau of HIV/AIDS at the Department of Health in
Florida, “the 2011 health care reforms should benefit and help us tremendously
 but we’re not there yet and we can’t gauge exactly how significant those changes will be.”

Worrisome news is floating around about those states which have introduced an
 ADAP waiting list. This is one method of restricting services that the state of
Florida will be implementing on June 1. South Carolina, which already had a waiting list
 for ADAP recipients has been slashing the state’s contributions to the program.
The House of Representatives in South Carolina even tried to push a complete cut of all
state funding to ADAP but this “solution” to S.C.’s budget problems was denied by the
Senate on Tuesday the 26. This would have represented a hostile “drop dead” approach to
dealing with HIV/AIDS patients and the pervasive fear is that some legislators in Florida
might find that appealing as well.

The example of South Carolina, where people have already died waiting for life-saving
medication is being seen by some as a bellwether for Florida, which cut state contributions
by $1 million last year. Liberti disagrees – he says that he “[doesn’t] expect anyone to go
without treatment.”

“There are all kinds of situations in which we would not deny someone their treatment,”
says Liberti, “For instance, if you are a pregnant woman or a pediatric/adolescent patient
or you’re undergoing chemotherapy.”

Liberti says that “you can’t just look at the fact that someone died while on an ADAP
waiting list in another state and draw too many conclusions from something like that.
Perhaps they were in advanced stages of the disease or died from other health complications.
They didn’t necessarily die from a lack of treatment.”

When asked if the possibility for discrimination against gay men was a possibility,
Liberti didn’t seem to think so. “There is no discrimination in the Florida Department of Health.
We have been advocating and caring for people without prejudice for many, many years.
I work with a number of gay people in my department,” Liberti affirms. However,
there is no official non-discrimination policy in the department.

“But there are always people who fall through the cracks in situations like this,” says
 Michael Rajner,
South Florida’s leading independent HIV/AIDS advocate. “There are people who
 can’t make their
appointments or don’t have the resources available to them to seek other services
that the state provides.”

Some patients feel that the government and its myriad of federal and local agencies
are naïve when it
comes to understanding how easily they can fall through those cracks.
One anonymous patient says
 “It’s been difficult to work or do anything else with my life since I spend so
much time waiting to
 fill out forms and apply for various services just to get the medication I need.
And what they don’t tell you
is that you are punished for missing an appointment by being put on the back burner.
We’re also expected
 to keep perfect records and have all the necessary documentation for everything.
 It’s a headache to say the least.”

“If any additional funds could help me get my medication faster so I can get back to work,”
the patient continues,
“then we need to tell Obama, or Congress or whoever that South Florida
really needs those funds... like, yesterday"...

JARRETT TERRILL