White House Opposes AIDS ‘Disaster Relief’ Measure : Health: The Senate is closing in on approval of the $2.9-billion bill, but Sullivan charges the legislation is too rigid.

The Senate neared approval Tuesday night of a $2.9-billion “disaster relief” bill for states and cities hardest hit by AIDS, but Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan said the Administration opposes both that measure and a related $5-billion proposal to expand Medicaid coverage for the growing disease.

The Senate bill, which would provide a $15.3-million first installment to Los Angeles health facilities and $53 million to California for alternative treatment programs next year, was cleared for rapid passage on a 95-3 procedural vote.

The measure is co-sponsored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and has 65 other senators formally backing it. Similar legislation authored by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) was approved earlier Tuesday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee by voice vote.

However, Sullivan, at a breakfast Tuesday with Times editors and reporters, protested that the rigid allocation of treatment funds for individual diseases and problems would deprive the government of the flexibility needed to weigh competing demands.

“We are aware of and concerned about the real problems that exist in some of our metropolitan areas around the country, (but) we would rather see ways found to address this that will not lock us into a disease-specific category of treatment monies,” he said. “That ties the hands.”

Sullivan said the Administration has not yet threatened to veto the so-called disaster relief bill, but strongly believes that money should not be earmarked for only one disease. “Because then, indeed, you set up a competition,” he asserted. “Then the next year, people concerned with diabetes are saying we need to get money earmarked for that.”

For the same reasons, Sullivan also objected to related legislation that would significantly expand Medicaid health insurance for early intervention. Under the proposal by Waxman and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), Medicaid would cover early drug intervention for those people infected with the AIDS virus who have not yet developed overt symptoms of the disease, but whose immune systems show signs of damage.

Recently, studies have shown the anti-viral AIDS drug AZT effective in delaying the onset of fully developed AIDS in these individuals.

Waxman reacted angrily to an account of Sullivan’s remarks.

“If the Administration is opposed to specific AIDS measures because they’re specific and opposed to general health measures because they’re expensive, what is it they support?” he asked.

“The Administration has previously recognized the demand for treatment,” said Kennedy. “I hope that the overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate will send a strong message to the President on the urgent need for this disaster relief.”

The Senate bill would provide $300 million in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 to 13 cities with the largest number of AIDS cases. The funds, which would grow to an estimated $338 million a year by 1995, would support hospitals, clinics, community health centers and nursing facilities as well as provide outpatient care aimed at reducing hospitalization.

The cities include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Washington. States would receive similar sums over five years to design comprehensive AIDS care programs, particularly for services to small towns and rural areas.

In its procedural vote Tuesday, the Senate overrode the vigorous objections of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and prevented a potential filibuster of the bill.

“I’ve never heard once in this chamber anybody say to the homosexuals and drug users: ‘Stop what you are doing,’ ” Helms said. “If they stopped, there would not be one additional new case of AIDS.”

Hatch, who usually votes as conservatively as Helms, said it would be “a mistake to condemn this bill based upon anybody’s lifestyle. This is . . . a public health bill.”