Health News
2005-12-06
Tennessee AIDS
groups call for reauthorization of Ryan White Act
Community leaders
in central Tennessee are urging Congress to renew the
Ryan White CARE Act, which they say is cr
Community leaders
in central Tennessee are urging Congress to renew the
Ryan White CARE Act, which they say is crucial to providing
care and treatment for HIV-positive people who have
been trimmed from the rolls of the state's troubled
TennCare program. State and local health officials
joined area health care providers, service agencies, and
HIV-positive people at a December 1 town hall meeting
hosted by the Ryan White ACTION Campaign and more than
a dozen community organizations.
"In the wake of
TennCare's recent retrenchment, Ryan White providers
in Tennessee are grappling to ensure that people with
HIV/AIDS can continue to receive the care and services
they need to survive and thrive," said Drema Mace, CEO
of Nashville's Comprehensive Care Center. "Without the
Ryan White CARE Act, we will effectively have no
safety net for people who could not otherwise afford care
and treatment."
The Ryan White
Comprehensive AIDS Resource Emergency Act, which provides
care and treatment for more than half a million uninsured
and underinsured HIV-positive people across the
country, expired on September 30. Congress has not yet
introduced a bill to renew it.
TennCare,
Tennessee’s health plan for poor, disabled, and
elderly people, has been restructured in a way that
has left nearly 200,000 Tennesseans without access,
including 1,200 HIV-positive people. A reauthorized and
adequately funded Ryan White CARE Act could hold the promise
for additional resources to fill in the gaps left by
the frayed safety net that TennCare has become, say
state AIDS experts.
"Without the help
provided by the Ryan White CARE Act, these people
simply cannot afford the care and treatment they need to
survive and live normal productive lives,”
Stephen Raffanti, chief medical officer at the
Comprehensive Care Center of Nashville, said of the
HIV-positive people cut from TennCare. (Advocate.com)
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