🏳️‍🌈✝️Trump’s 2018 Budget “Decimates” Efforts to Fight HIV

The title of Trump's proposed FY2018 budget

Courtesy of the White House

AIDS groups spell out how the proposed massive budget cuts will harm both local and global funding.

May 23, 2017

 

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President Trump unveiled his proposed budget for fiscal year 2018, which starts October 1, and, as Reuters reports, the plan calls for a $3.6 trillion cut in government spending during the next 10 years, mostly from health care and assistance programs for the poor, including Medicaid.

Although the plan is not likely to pass Congress, it reveals Trump’s vision of the role of government. Where do the nation’s HIV efforts fit into this picture? A few AIDS organizations released statements explaining how the proposed budget could affect specific HIV-related programs.

On the domestic front, The AIDS Institute highlighted the following:

• In one of the biggest setbacks, the president has proposed to cut HIV prevention programs at the CDC by $149 million, which translates to a 19 percent cut.

• The budget proposed to entirely eliminate the AIDS Education and Training Centers (AETCs) ($34 million) and the Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) ($25 million).

• In another disappointment, the budget maintains CDC Hepatitis Prevention funding at only $34 million [at a time when new infections have nearly tripled].

• Given that racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS, The AIDS Institute was shocked that the budget eliminates the Secretary of Health and Human Services Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI) Fund ($54 million).

• The budget also cuts $26 million from the Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA) program at HUD.

• Funding for the National Institutes of Health would be cut by over 20 percent, which will certainly result in a dramatic cut to AIDS research.

“We call on the Congress to reject these cuts and craft a responsible budget that provides adequate funding for non-defense discretionary and other mandatory funded programs, such as Medicaid,” said Michael Ruppal, executive director of The AIDS Institute, in the press release. 
“These are lifesaving programs that provide for a stronger, healthier and more prosperous nation.”

AIDS United, in a statement you can read in full on its POZ Blog, said it is “shocked” by Trump’s budget request. The group’s president and CEO Jesse Milan Jr. said, “Investment in targeted approaches are effective and save money at a time when 1 in 2 and 1 in 4 Black and Latino gay and bisexual men respectively are at substantial risk for HIV infection in their lifetime. How can we reduce funding to programs that address these disparities? The president’s budget isn’t just a set of numbers, it’s a disturbing statement of values.”

On the global front, Trump’s budget slashes $1.08 billion from global HIV programs, according to Health GAP (Global Access Project), an international advocacy group for people with HIV. Those cuts include:

• A 17 percent cut to the Global Fund, which will result in $450 million fewer dollars leveraged from other countries through the $2 to $1 matching agreement that governs the U.S. contribution;
  
• Bilateral PEPFAR programs were also cut by 17 percent overall, including:
  
• An approximate 10 percent cut to State Department HIV/AIDS funding;
  
• Eliminating entirely the global AIDS programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a $330 million cut; 
  
• Cutting in half the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) global AIDS budget; and
  
• Eliminating all funding for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), which will stop 10 current promising candidates from progressing and halt research toward the development of a preventative HIV vaccine.  

“This budget turns its back on 14 years of investment to end the epidemic by 2030—a goal that’s in reach if we commit $2 billion in additional annual funding to scale up HIV treatment,” said Hilary McQuie, Health Gap’s director of U.S. policy and grassroots mobilization, in the statement. “Congress should reject these cuts out of hand and fulfill the promise of a fully funded global AIDS response in the Fiscal Year 2018 budget.”

For more POZ articles about how Medicaid affects people living with HIV, click here and on #Medicaid.

Read more articles from POZ, here.