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Related sites White House Office of National AIDS Policy |
House expected to contest funding
Posted
3-27-2000 San Francisco. Sandra Thurman, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, urged Congress to renew funding for the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, the nearly $1.7 billion federal program that funds thousands of community-based AIDS organizations around the country. Thurman’s remarks kicked off the 12th National HIV/AIDS Update Conference in San Francisco last week, hosted by the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Thurman said Congress has been slow to act on the measure despite bipartisan support for the CARE act, and the delay sends a message of complacency about the disease. While a Senate bill is expected in the coming weeks, the act could face opposition from leaders in the House of Representatives who want to add more restrictive language to the bill, which could affect the scope and the type of programs the measure funds. Rep. Tom Coburn, MD, R-Okla., has called the funding formulas unfair and claims they are biased because they favor metropolitan areas over rural areas. Steve Morin, PhD, director of the Policy Center at the UCSF AIDS Research Institute and director of the Policy Core at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, said the CARE act would face its main test in the House. "The problem is not the Senate. The most likely scenario is that they will pass the bill and then it will have a problem in the House of Representatives," he said. "There’s strong popular support, and right now there is considerable pressure from constituent groups to reauthorize now. But there is the potential for very significant amendments from Coburn that would not be well received in the AIDS community." The bill will continue to receive funding as an "unauthorized" bill if Congress doesn’t pass renewal legislation in the current term. "We certainly want to get this taken care of," Thurman said. "We don’t know what the next Congress will look like if we wait another year to reauthorize." The CARE act has helped fund programs serving more than half a million people with HIV and AIDS, often funding programs that care for the poorest populations with the disease.
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