County to Seek Private Sector’s Help in AIDS Crisis

Faced with a consultant’s grim prediction that Los Angeles County may soon be saddled with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of AIDS-related costs, the county Commission on AIDS began Wednesday considering ways of shifting some of the burden to the private sector.

Such an arrangement would do more than ease the strain the disease places on county finances, members said. It might make it possible to circumvent politicians’ objections to the kind of explicit language many say is needed to educate people about the disease.

“The thread that has woven all through this document is that this problem has been politicized,” said Dr. Monroe Richman, referring to the county consultant’s report on AIDS. “Let’s minimize the politicization by involving the private sector.”

The commission held a special session Wednesday to discuss the initial draft of a five-year plan for the county’s approach to the AIDS problem. The study, released Friday, predicts that as many as 340,000 people may be infected with the AIDS virus by 1991.

The plan, prepared by Peat Marwick Main & Co. for the county Department of Health Services, also states that county expenditures will have to rise dramatically from $32 million this year to $92 million in the 1991-92 fiscal year.

One after another, commissioners rose to speak about the need for what they called a public-private partnership: Hospitals and insurers might help pay the costs of care for the indigent; firms could take responsibility for educating workers about AIDS, they suggested.

That approach might enable the county to get around the political objections that critics say have hamstrung AIDS education programs. Several county supervisors have blocked distribution of materials that describe risky sexual practices or drug use in explicit terms.

“There are those people who suggest that any time explicit language is used, what we’re really doing is using pornographic material,” said Rabbi Allen Freehling, the commission chairman. He said there is a need for an “attitudinal change” among those who hold such views.

Several members suggested additions to the plan, which is to be presented to the supervisors in final form on April 15. They suggested assigning county workers specifically to apply for grants, and devoting more attention and resources to mental health services.

Commissioner Peter McDermott suggested costs may exceed predicted levels as new drugs prolong the lives of infected people. Meanwhile, the increase in sick people will erode the county’s tax base, reducing the money available to fight the disease, another member noted.

“This is not a Department of Health Services problem. This is a public health problem,” Richman argued. “And public health means the private sector as well as the public sector.”