Utah hoping for more HIV/AIDS Healthcare Money

None by KCPW

Democratic Takeover Threatens to Stall Ryan White Act Reauthorization

(KCPW News) The reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act could send more federal funds to help those living with HIV and AIDS in Utah. However, the Democrat takeover of congress may prevent Senator Orrin Hatch's Utah-friendly version from passing.

"There are a lot of people that are trying to hold up the reauthorization of Ryan White until the beginning of the next session because with the change of control in congress they believe that certain states like California, New Jersey, New York, Illinois- those states are going to be able to get substantially more money with the new Democratic control."

Stuart Merrill, of the Campaign 2 End Aids- Utah Chapter, says bigger states like New York and California are already more generously funded while Utah's resources have taken a hit in recent years:

"We cut one program after another until there was absolutely nothing left to cut. We don't even have transportation funding in our state and we have some people who have to travel 350 miles in each direction to see their doctor- while in larger states like New York they've got 400 pills on their formulary including growth hormone, which is I think between 2 and 3 thousand dollars a month."

Merrill says that if the act isn't reauthorized within last remaining days of this congressional session, Utah will have to wait until 2008 to get its portion of federal HIV/AIDS healthcare related funding.

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