Spending Levels for AIDS Relief Hit as Too Low

AIDS organizations and public health officials struggled to regroup Monday after a House-Senate conference committee funded landmark AIDS legislation at a level that they say defeats the bill’s intent.

“Cities saw this as a real hope of helping them deal with the AIDS crisis . . . and now everyone is going to have to scale back plans,” said Dan Bross, executive director of the AIDS Action Council, which represents the more than 600 community-based AIDS groups.

“Public hospitals will continue to experience a strain and people will have to go without services,” he added. “It’s like having a pot of money within your grasp and then having it yanked away.”

Lawmakers agreed to fund the bill at just over $220 million, substantially less than the $875 million authorized when Congress enacted the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act last summer. Los Angeles officials, who had anticipated receiving $32 million, now expect to get between $4 million and $6 million.

The $220 million approved by the conference committee Friday includes $87.8 million in “disaster relief” for those cities hit hardest by the disease, $87.8 million for block grants to the states and $44.7 million for testing, counseling and early intervention services.

The amount allocated to early intervention “doesn’t begin to meet the need,” said Jeff Levi, a Washington-based AIDS policy consultant. He said that he is concerned that the funds will cover only testing for infection and counseling and no medical intervention to delay the onset of symptoms.

It’s unethical . . . to be forcing people who are HIV infected to fend for themselves once they get this devastating news,” said Levi.

“It’s a huge decrease, and it’s shameful,” said Mario Solis-Marich, director of public policy for AIDS Project/Los Angeles.

“Right now, at County USC Medical Center, there’s a five-month wait to see a doctor if you don’t have insurance. In five months, people who are HIV positive could go on to a major opportunistic infection,” said Solis-Marich, who is also a member of the County HIV Planning Council and the Los Angeles City AIDS Advisory Council.

In New York City, which has the largest number of AIDS cases in the nation, “we were very much counting on the money, and the fact that we’re not going to receive it is going to hurt--and hurt badly,” said Dr. Woodrow A. Myers Jr., commissioner of health.

Myers said that the number of hospital patients with AIDS in New York City “is expected to double between now and 1993, and 1993 is just around the corner.”