Needy HIV+ patients a victim of the economic recession? With the rise once again in jobless claims in this country and the possibility of a much-maligned scenario of a double-dip recession, government programs that formed the cornerstone of HIV and AIDS treatment for patients who could not afford traditional access to those treatments are now closing — creating a fallout in states in which waiting lists are the result.

What’s more surprising than this development is the lack of safety funding for depleted federal and state programs; the Obama administration has yet to guarantee any sort of budgetary proposal or stimulus mechanism for saving these programs. In the state of Georgia, waiting lists for accessibility to HIV treatments is up to almost 1300 persons.^[1] In Florida, almost three-hundred.

An increasingly sad state of affairs in this early drive toward reform. This segment of the indigent care population could succumb to the same restrictions on eligibility those who are mentally ill perennially seem to face from many government-run programs. Will it take a redux of the same levels of prevalence rates of HIV not seen in 20 years to jar the Obama administration to attention on this issue? | LINK

1. Pregnant women, children and adolescents, and patients with “extreme conditions” can be exempt from the waiting list. [↩]

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