January 4, 2008

STATE OF THE SPITZ

Time for a comeback?

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer — who's survived a brutal first year in office and lived to tell the tale — will kick off this year's state legislative session in Albany next Wednesday with a State of the State speech that will contain the usual hints of budget and policy priorities for the year to come.

But this year's State of the State will also be closely watched for clues as to how Spitzer and his aides will try to mount a comeback effort to push the Governor back towards the public opinion heights he occupied just one short year ago.

Spitzer is facing a one-two political punch of continued gridlock with the Republican-led State Senate and a $4.5 billion budget gap that will require cuts in health care and other popular programs.

So far, the Spitzer team's hinting that — for the second year in a row — any health care cuts won't be targeted at low-income and disabled New Yorkers with Medicaid cards in their pockets, but rather at the deep-pocketed drug companies, private hospitals, and profitable nursing homes that may be better positioned to digest some cuts.

And there will be new investments in some health care services, possibly including state-only funding for last year's Child Health Plus expansion (currently blocked by the feds). Other key HIV/AIDS items up for consideration:

• advocates including GMHC and Housing Works are pushing for a modest rate increase for COBRA case management programs for people living with HIV/AIDS;
• the AIDS Day Services Association is pushing for state-only funding for a rate increase for AIDS adult day health care programs that was approved two years ago, but has been delayed by more federal-official foot-dragging;
• and the New York City AIDS Housing Network, GMHC and Housing Works are pushing for a 30% rent cap for tenants living with HIV/AIDS this year — and a statewide expansion of HIV housing and support services for next year's budget.

HIV/AIDS, LGBT and Medicaid consumer health care groups have been among the strongest and most vocal supporters of Spitzer's "Patients First" health care agenda, and hopes are high that their concerns will be addressed in the Guv's 2008-09 budget, due out January 22 — and perhaps even that Governor Spitzer will back a key AIDS initiative or two in Wednesday's speech. We'll be watching — and reporting. You can check out the speech Wednesday afternoon at 1PM at http://www.ny.gov/governor, and we'll have full details in next week's Update.

The Housing Works AIDS Issues Update is reported, written and edited by Diana Scholl, David Thorpe, Phil Fox Rose, Christine Campbell, terri smith-caronia and Housing Works staff. Send your feedback, leads and story ideas to d.scholl@housingworks.org.

You can reach us by phone at 212-967-1500 x168, by fax at 212-868-4222, and by email at d.scholl@housingworks.org. Housing Works provides housing, advocacy and services to homeless people living with AIDS and HIV. Housing Works is the nation's largest community-based AIDS organization and the nation's largest minority-controlled AIDS organization.

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