Presidential
hopeful John Edwards unveiled a new plan that would provide
universal health care, emphasizing a planned fight to end
the domestic and international spread of HIV.
Presidential
hopeful John Edwards unveiled a new plan that would provide
universal health care, emphasizing a planned fight to end
the domestic and international spread of HIV.
The Edwards plan
would expand Medicaid to cover HIV-positive individuals
before they reach the later stages of AIDS. The plan also
would also target African-American and Latino
populations, where the rates of infection are high.
Edwards also pledged $50 billion worldwide over five
years to curb the spread of the disease.
The former North
Carolina U.S. senator also said he would end protections
for pharmaceutical corporations so that more low-cost
generic HIV drugs would become available.
Edwards also
outlined a plan for an age-appropriate sex education
curriculum across the nation to counter President
Bush’s concentration on abstinence-only
education.
“The loss
from HIV/AIDS is almost beyond understanding,”
Edwards said in a statement Monday. “This is a
fight for people’s lives. HIV is a preventable
disease—but an estimated 40,000 new HIV cases were
reported in the U.S. last year, and 4.3 million were
reported around the world. What’s more,
HIV/AIDS is a treatable disease—yet 17,000 Americans
and 3 million people globally died from it in 2005. We
have a moral imperative to do much more and do it much
better.” (The Advocate)
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