Hundreds of HIV/AIDS patients will converge in the state Capitol Building tomorrow with a message for lawmakers: Slashing funding to certain health-care programs could have dire ramifications. As some of the sickest people in the state—there are an estimated 11,000 patients living with HIV in Washington—many cannot independently afford paying for medications, food, and housing.
But virtually every discretionary form of spending is on the chopping block. Last year, Governor Gregoire forecast a nearly $6-billion budget shortfall; however, tax collections this year haven’t met expectations, and some estimate the budget shortfall could grow to over $8 billion.
“These people are accessing just about every type of social service in Washington,” says John Taylor, a member of the public policy committee for Lifelong AIDS Alliance, which is organizing AIDS Awareness & Action Day. Clients rely on state-funded programs such as an early intervention program—facing a 13 percent cut—which serves 3,300 patients with medical coverage and expensive prescriptions. Other money is funneled to Lifelong. “If these people get cut loose from the social services, there are no safety nets underneath them.”
Paying for medical costs up front is a worthy investment, Taylor says. “People we don’t cover don’t get treated, and they end up at the hospital. Then we have to pay for them in the most expensive way imaginable.”
Madeline Brooks, 51, who contracted HIV 17 years ago from an ex-husband who didn’t tell her he had the disease, relies on a piecemeal of services to get by. Lifelong provides meals, and the state provides $60 in food stamps each month and covers the costs of her medications. “If I didn’t have the food to take with my meds, my stomach would cramp so bad I wouldn’t be able to stand up,” she says. “I wouldn’t be able to handle the pain.” She’s also gets clothing and emergency rent assistance from Lifelong.
“If they start cutting, there will be a lot more people getting sick,” Brooks says. “There will be a lot more deaths.”
Too bad. We’re in a recession. Cut it.
Is no longer our problem. Never should have been.
What percentage of those people with AIDS contracted the disease as a result of a conscious decision that they made at some point in there lives?
@1, it remains our problem even if we close our eyes. Funny how that works.
@2, they got sick, you got dumb. Sometimes people are just unlucky.
1- Life is hard.
2- And then you die.
What is the current estimate between diagnosis and death?
I wonder if we’ll actually see a cure in our (my) lifetime (I’m in my mid-20s).
@3 You might not have been keen enough to parse my implied point that it’s highly likely that a lot of those people got sick because of intravenous drug use or unprotected sex.
They could always move to Cali.
3
Why/how is it our problem. This is a serious question.
8 – because you live in a society where you are dependent upon your fellow adult human beings to be healthy, functional, and productive. because people with chronic illnesses such as HIV often become sick and die at the most productive time of their lives. because it is much cheaper to pay for treatment to manage chronic illnesses than it is to pay for end-of-life hospitalization.
and so on and so forth. the balance of cost-benefit is not nearly as simple as you like to think. like it or not, it is very much your problem.
I live in a society that slaughters a million innocent babies a year.
If the chronic ill are without useful skills are they still my problem?
It would be cheaper yet not to pay anything, chronic management or end-of-life.
Why and how is it my problem?
#10: Babies are a gigantic drain on an adult’s resources (and society as a whole) for years and years, so it’s vital that only the affordable ones be brought to term.
Hence, abortion. It stops a beating heart, every time, and good thing too. A million is a good beginning in hard economic times. Otherwise, you’ll be paying for other people’s kids.
Why…because it is the right thing to do. Stop with the selfish thinking and think about those who need our help. And while you are THINKING consider what you would want society and your fellow beings to do if you needed help – then hope, pray or do whatever it is you do that you will never need it.
It’s so damn easy to criticize when you’ve never faced a terminal illness. Bottom line: no matter what someone does, what stupid mistake they make, they don’t deserve to die this way.
AIDS is horrible, horrifying, and wrong. We need to start taking into account our friends, family, neighbors, and fellow man’s right to live and die with respect. Too much time’s been wasted, too many lives lost.
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I totally get the ‘love your neighbor’ thing.
It is the philosophy I try to live my life by.
But on slog the constant refrain is that religion has no place in public policy so I get to wondering why we put so much public money into healthcare because if it is for economic benefit reasons then we are allocating that money poorly but if it is for religious reasons then whose religious values are we enacting and why?
The bottom line approach would not spend the money we do on chronic and terminal patients, it would steer more of those resources to the young. (of course, kids don’t have an AARP to strongarm Congress for them)