Sen. Tom Coburn, M.D., and GOProud's Christopher R. Barron say that the inefficiencies of the
Ryan White CARE Act suggest that a government-run program is not the key to quality health care.
COMMENTARY: Right now, there are hundreds of patients with a fatal disease being denied lifesaving treatment as a result of government health care rationing. This isn’t happening in a third-world country, or Canada, but right here in the United States of America.
Imagine that you have been sick for weeks, maybe even months, and you haven’t gone to the doctor. You are scared -- and worst of all you don’t have insurance. When you finally do go, you get the news you had feared -- you’ve been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. The good news is that the disease can be treated, that the disease can be managed, unfortunately, at a cost of as much as $20,000 a year. You are told that there is a government program that can provide treatment, but there is a waiting list, and it may be months or years before you will finally receive the medication that would keep you alive. Without treatment, you could die.
The disease is HIV/AIDS and the public program is the Ryan White CARE Act.
The federal government will spend $15 billion on AIDS treatment alone this year, yet due to the inefficiencies of the public-run program, thousands will not receive appropriate care. In recent years, two patients in West Virginia and five in Kentucky died while awaiting care on waiting lists for the RWCA AIDS Drug Assistance Program. Today there are 247 Americans on waiting lists for livesaving AIDS drugs in eight states. The number is expected to reach 500 by Christmas. Those on the ADAP waiting lists are disproportionately minorities and residents of rural areas.
Sadly, the waiting lists do not tell the whole story of how care is being rationed under this program. Many other ADAP patients, while receiving care, are being denied the best treatment. Fuzeon, the AIDS drug of last resort that has been successful in treating patients who no longer benefit from other drugs, for example, has been denied to ADAP patients in our nation’s capital.
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