Input Into a National Plan for Federal Action in HIV/AIDS: Another Chance!
Last month, we invited you to participate via email and/or conference call in a survey conducted by AAHIVM and the HIV Medicine Association. This was to gather your recommendations to include in a new document called, “Ending the HIV Epidemic in the United States: A Roadmap for Federal Action”.
The document is designed as a realistic guide to assist the Trump administration and Congress as they start work on the Federal HIV/AIDS Strategy 2020. The Roadmap is a collective effort by the Act Now End AIDS Coalition, a broad network to which AAHIVM and the HIV Medicine Association belong. The Coalition will present the final Roadmap on December 1 (World AIDS Day) to our US Representatives and Senators (current and incoming), as well as the administration.
Your input as a health care provider is still welcome and needed in this document!
Wednesday, the Roadmap’s first draft was presented to Coalition members at the US Conference on AIDS. This draft is now available online at http://bit.ly/EtERoadmapUSCA for further input. We encourage you to review it and share any thoughts or recommendations to this group development process by emailing them to ete@aidsunited.org.
Section 5 of the Roadmap, called “Improve Care and Treatment”, may be of particular interest. It includes, “Increase Access to Medicaid” (starting on page 52), “Protect Healthcare Gains Made Under ACA” (page 58), “Preventing an HIV Workforce Shortage” (page 63) and “Protecting 340B Drug Discount Program” (page 65).
The Roadmap was inspired by the administration’s announcement a few months ago that DHHS would be starting work this year to develop the National HIV/AIDS Strategy 2020. This will follow up on the first NHAS published in 2010 and the second in 2015. This year, however, the announcement generated concern that led to formation of the Act Now End AIDS Coalition. Fearing what the administration’s 2020 version might look like, we agreed to act proactively by developing a comprehensive community plan for moving the US toward substantially reducing HIV transmission, illness and deaths. Thus, we are gathering information from our respective communities, sharing drafts with all Coalition members and preparing a document we can present publicly on World AIDS Day (12/1/2018).
It will describe what WE (those living with HIV and/or working directly on HIV/AIDS issues) see as essential if we are to “bend the arc” of the epidemic. In its Preamble, the current version of the Roadmap states that, to succeed, “we must return to a place of rights-based policy making, viewing access to health care and essential medicines as a human right and prioritizing the physical and mental well-being of all Americans above the the financial interests of those in power.”
Your additional comments on the Roadmap are welcome until the October 4, 2018 deadline.
View the latest HIV Policy Update here.