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March 14, 2008
POST-KRISTEN MEDICAID REFORM?
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Paterson should pick up on Medicaid reform |
Disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer didn't serve long enough to leave much of a legacy, but one Spitzer initiative worth seeing through to the end is his fight for Medicaid reform. Fortunately, those who have worked with incoming Governor David Paterson from his days in the State Senate are pretty confident that when he takes office Monday, he will pursue Spitzer's efforts to get money out of the pockets of HMOs and pharmaceutical companies and into the hands of the front line community-based care providers that serve four million poor and disabled New Yorkers who rely on Medicaid and other public programs for survival.
Paterson said becoming governor during budget season is like being "the student who's getting ready for the final exam but they didn't attend any classes." One way he will be sure to ace the test is holding on to Spitzer's health team led by Deputy Secretary for Health and Human Services Dennis Whalen and Deputy Commissioner of the Office of Health Insurance Program and State Medicaid Director Deborah Bachrach. This group has a solid grasp on the right changes that need to be made...
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WHAT A DRAG
Council Members livid at delay in prevention funds
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Frieden defended the DOH |
The ongoing nine month delay in distributing $2.7 million dollars intended to fight HIV/AIDS among communities of color "is not a process that leads itself to effective programming," Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Tom Frieden said Tuesday in his address at the City Council preliminary budget hearing for the Committee on Health. And, as Frieden noted, "In this instance, it's not the fault of the Department of Health."
Since its inception, the City has taken so long to distribute its HIV/AIDS Prevention and Education program money, better known as the Communities of Color, or COC, funds, that the deserving organizations who desperately need the dollars will have to scramble to spend them before the June 30 fiscal year deadline. This diminishes their ability to serve the folks the money is intended to help. Frieden diplomatically didn't point fingers, but we can: City Council is responsible for the hold-up...
NOW IS THE TIME...
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Conway became a full-fledged AIDS activist after YAI |
Do you want to work to end HIV/AIDS as an epidemic, but aren't quite sure how? Are you between the ages of 16 and 26? Are you available from June 25 to 29? If you answered yes to all three questions, then listen closely to these three words that could change your life: Youth Action Institute.
Just send in an application by March 22 and you could be headed to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the Youth Action Institute, the jump-off for an incredible summer-long journey to AIDS activism. At YAI, participants discover how they can join in the fight against the epidemic from experienced activists living with HIV/AIDS, network with other young people from around the country, and learn the basics of AIDS advocacy from grassroots organizing to lobbying to direct action (i.e. protests and demonstrations!)...
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DIRECT ACTION HERO
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Cylar awardee Williams |
From the 27 day walk from New York to Washington, D.C., to kick off the Campaign to End AIDS to—count 'em—nine arrests, there has hardly been an advocacy event at Housing Works during the last 14 years that Diane Williams didn't play a part in. From the moment Williams became a Housing Works client in 1994, she was passionate about advocating for herself and fellow people with HIV/AIDS.
"I want to be an advocate for my brothers and sisters in Mexico and Africa and here in the United States and show AIDS is not a death sentence," Williams said. "We need equal medication everywhere, comprehensive sex education in schools. There's just so much to be done." For her committment to activism, Williams, who currently serves as an administrative assistant to Housing Works Senior Vice President Andrew Coamey, will be awarded the 2008 Keith D. Cylar Housing Works AIDS Activist Award at the Times Center on April 17. For more information about the gala, or to purchase tickets, go to cylarawards.com...
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ACTION ALERT: ASK YOUR REPS TO BOOST HOPWA FUNDING!
living with HIV/AIDS
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Tell your rep to follow Nadler's leader! |
"Patron saint of HOPWA" Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Joseph Crowley (D-NY) released a programmatic sign-on letter on March 4 to the Chair and Ranking Member of the House THUD Appropriations Subcommittee requesting $470 million for the Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA) program for FY2009—the amount required to provide housing assistance to an additional 40,000 low-income people with HIV/AIDS and their families.
The President included a recommendation of $300 million for HOPWA in his FY2009 budget representing flat funding from the current fiscal year, which is not enough to make a real dent in fighting homelessness among people with HIV/AIDS...
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HOUSING HUDDLE
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AIDS housing providers put their heads together this week. |
On Tuesday, for the first time since the dissolution of the New York City Planning Council housing work group, AIDS housing organizations came together for an AIDS Housing Advocacy Summit to compare notes on a host of issues preventing poor people living with HIV/AIDS from getting adequate housing.
Statewide, about 10,000 low-income people with HIV/AIDS are forced to live on an unlivable budget of $330 a month because all of their other income, such as SSI benefits, must go towards their rent. That leaves almost nothing—$11 a day to be precise—for nutrition, transportation and everything else. "A client told me, 'I'll budget my money when I have money to budget,'" Bailey House Executive Director Gina Quattrochi said, a story familiar to other housing providers in attendance...
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