Description

HIV/AIDS is among the top ten healthcare issues plaguing the United States. An approximate 1.2 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in the United States today with 14% of them unaware of their infected HIV status. Statistics show that in the year 2015 there was an estimated 38,500 new HIV infections. Statistics also say that gay, bisexual and men who have sex with other men represent 26,200 of the new infections showing that they have the greatest burden due to their risk group. In 2017, 38,739 people received new HIV infection diagnoses in the United States with the annual number of new HIV diagnosis in the United States stabilizing from 2012 to 2016. There is an uneven distribution of HIV diagnosis in the United States with 52%, 19,968 of the 38,739 new HIV diagnosis came from the South of the United States. HIV/AIDS offers a platform for the examination of the US healthcare system. New treatments available have the potential of prolonging the lives of people with HIV/AIDS but only if they have access to health care. However, there are still an increasing number of new infections among people with poor access to healthcare with restrictions on Medicaid eligibility contributing to the uneven access to the most important safety net source of HIV care funding. As a result, many poor people living with HIV/AIDS go without care notwithstanding the fact that aggregate spending on care related to HIV totaled $7.7 billion in the 2000 fiscal year. This amount is more than sufficient to cover the cost of care for more than half of people living with HV/AIDS. With this in mind in assessment ought to be conducted to help in the creation of a more rational model of care for people living with HIV/AIDS, which could be replicated for all other health issues in the United States.

Administration (President Name)    Obama administration    Trump Administration

Describe the administrative agenda focus related to this issue    On July 30, 2015 the Executive Order launching National HIV/AIDS Strategy was signed by President Obama. It has recently been updated to 2020 and it builds on the five years of progress since the release of the first comprehensive National HIV/AIDS Strategy. There have been some major changes in the National HIV/AIDS strategy such as the expansion of the prevention tool kit to include Pre-Exposure Propholaxis (PrEP), which reduces the risk of HIV contraction by up to 92% if taken with consistency. PrEP also reduces the chance of transmission by 96%. Millions of people now have access to affordable and quality health coverage due to the Affordable Care Act. This means that there is no denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions such as HIV. Federal guidelines now recommend routine HIV screening for persons between the ages of 25 and 65 (Munoz, 2019). The Federal HIV treatment guidelines now recommend ARV therapy for everyone living with HIV.

In December 2018, President Donald trump signed the bill reauthorizing the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the year 2023. This program is engaging in activities such as antiretroviral treatment, HIV-preventing male circumcision and other efforts involved in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AID (Matthews, 2019).

In December of 2018, President Trump’s administration dealt a blow to the research on HIV by cutting its funding. The blow came through an announcement from the NIH that it will not be providing financial support to a research facility in California whose work is geared towards finding a cure and or vaccine to HIV/AIDS. This is a law against the fight to combat HIV/AIDS since every HIV drug treatment available has undergone testing at this California lab and its affiliates.

As recently as January of 2019 President Trump’s administration announced its intention to launch a campaign to end the HIV pandemic in the United States by 2030. The campaign will be accomplished supplying highly effective drugs to people at risk in addition to targeting areas with recorded highest numbers of new infections.

Allocation of financial and other resources to this issue

In 2009, president Obama reauthorized the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program by signing the Ryan White Treatment Extension Act. Today the program serves over half of the people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States with its $2.32 billion funding.

In the year 2011 President Obama announced $35 million in emergency funds for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, who at the time had a waiting list of over 9,000 people living with HIV/AIDS.

The PEPFAR program reauthorized by President Trump provides billions in annual funding for antiretroviral treatment, HIV-preventing male circumcision and other efforts involved in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

The Trump administration is yet to lay out the source of funding for the campaign it plans to launch to eradicate HIV/AIDS in the United States by the year 2030. However, he has received warnings from the administration not to take money from other initiatives to finance the campaign whose budget is yet to be revealed.

Cutting funding into HIV/AIDS research stops any progress in finding a cure for the disease and improving the effectiveness of the drugs that are already available in the market.

Notes on Administration’s approach to the issue    In my opinion the Obama administration had a good approach to dealing with the healthcare issue of HIV/AIDS. Reinstatement of the Ryan white Foundation was a major move as it facilitated the service of over half of the United States population living with HIV/AIDS.

The PEPFAR reinstatement is a good move on Trump’s part.

The campaign to eradicate HIV/AIDS in the United States if properly implemented would work wonders for the fight on the health issue.

Cutting funding into HIV research is a counterintuitive move since research is critical to the eradication of the HIV/AIDS health issue.

General Notes/Comments

References

Levi, J., & Kates, J. (2000). HIV: challenging the health care delivery system. American journal of public health, 90(7), 1033-6.

Matthews, D. (2019). Trump called for an end to HIV in the US by 2030. That’s totally realistic. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2019/2/5/18210455/state-of-the-union-2019-trump-hiv-health

Munoz, C. (2019). What We’ve Done to Address HIV/AIDS in America during the Obama Administration. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@Cecilia44/what-weve-done-to-address-hiv-aids-in-america-during-the-obama-administration-

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