Report Addresses AIDS Health Care

The state's HIV/AIDS Minority Task Force has been holding statewide public comment sessions as it crafts its 2011 legislative agenda. During a recent stop in Springdale, the task force presented findings from the State Healthcare Access Research Project (SHARP) to an audience of about 40 HIV patients and providers of care and services.

Produced by Harvard Law School's Health, Law and Policy Clinic and the Treatment Access Expansion Project, the SHARP report has 22 recommendations for improving access to HIV/AIDS care in Arkansas. Reports have also been created for other, mostly Southern states. SHARP's recommends that Arkansas, among other suggestions:
*Provide state funding for its AIDS Drug Assistance Program. "Arkansas provides no state funding for HIV care, other than the state Medicaid match," the report states.
*Increase corporate taxes, even marginally. Over the last three decades, corporate taxes have declined from representing 31 percent of state general revenues to 6 percent.
*Increase Medicaid reimbursement rates. "Low reimbursement rates have greatly reduced Medicaid patients' access to qualified health care providers and specialists," it said.
*Establish "one-stop shops" for HIV medical and social services, which could also ease patients' travel burdens.
*Create a consumer office to incorporate patients' perspectives into state Department of Health daily operations.
*Improve coordination between STD surveillance and client services.
*Move daily surveillance tasks under the HIV/STD/Hepatitis C section chief, while leaving data analysis to technical experts in epidemiology and surveillance.

"Tax policies disproportionately burden low-income families, and state law makes it easier to increase regressive sales taxes than income taxes," the report notes. Nonetheless, the state's Medicaid eligibility income ceiling is one of the nation's lowest.

The task force presented the SHARP report to the General Assembly's Joint Public Health Committee earlier this year. Members plan to work with legislators on getting the Bureau of Legislative Research to evaluate the cost of prioritized policy recommendations, tailored to perhaps two to five bills.

The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.


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