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August 1, 2008
READY OR NOT...
even if DOH won't confirm
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…here Medicaid managed care comes flickr.com/photos/athena1970/1641655879/ |
During a New York State AIDS Advisory Council call last Wednesday, the Department of Health (DOH) discussed logistics of the switch for people with AIDS on Medicaid to mandatory managed care. DOH hasn't made an official announcement, but sources who were on the call say that despite lip service to community input, Medicaid managed care is going to happen, possibly as early as January 2009. The DOH had long said that any such shift would happen one borough a year for five years.
"It was all kind of a surprise that they are moving so quickly," said Dr. Lambert King, Director of the Department of Medicine at the Queens Hospital Center, who is on the AIDS Advisory Council and was one of the few members able to make the hastily arranged call. King said that the DOH indicated on the call that it would come up with a plan this week or next week and would solicit community input...
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LAST CALL IAC SUMMIT REMINDER!
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Housing is a right! |
You're invited to make history—and waves—at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City this weekend. The National AIDS Housing Coalition, Housing Works, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Ontario HIV Treatment Network will host the first-ever International Summit on Poverty, Homelessness and HIV/AIDS satellite session at the 2008 International AIDS Conference on Sunday, August 3, 2008 from 1:30 to 3:30 pm in Session Room 7. The session will be conducted in English, Spanish and French.
After the session, participants will march to the IAC offices and present IAC organizers with a declaration demanding that "policy makers address the lack of adequate housing as a barrier to effective HIV prevention, treatment and care; and that all governments fund and develop housing as a response to the AIDS pandemic."...
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THREADING THE NEEDLE
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The NEX ban belongs here flickr.com/photos/fallax/411738529/ |
The Community AIDS and Hepatitis Prevention Act (H.R. 6680) would eliminate the HHS rider that prohibits federal funding for syringe exchange, allowing states and local jurisdictions to spend federal prevention dollars on syringe exchange, and also update other Congressional directives that prohibit funding for syringe exchange...
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STANDING AGAINST AIDS IN THE SOUTH
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Last month, I attended the Southern Access Summit, and it was a disturbing reminder of how the South has been ravaged by the AIDS epidemic. Even though the South is only 36 percent of the U.S. population, 52 percent of people with HIV live in the South. Of the 20 states with the highest rates of new HIV diagnoses, nine are in the South. Southern states comprise 65 percent of AIDS cases among rural populations.
Now is the time to take action. Until every level of the U.S. government systematically addresses HIV and AIDS in the South, the disease will continue to ravage not just the South, but poor and rural areas throughout the country. The lack of basic services and prevention in rural areas is too important to be addressed in a piecemeal funding process or by simply throwing a few more federal dollars our way. What we need is a long-term plan to provide evidence-based prevention and access to quality care while diffusing the stigma that undermines these efforts...
Read the rest: "STANDING AGAINST AIDS IN THE SOUTH"