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Senate Committee Approves Reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act

On May 17, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved, 19-1, a bill (S. 2823) to reauthorize the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act (P.L. 101-381), first enacted in 1990. It was reauthorized in 2000 (P.L. 106-345), expired on September 30, 2005, and is currently operating under a continuing resolution. The committee debated the bill on March 1 (see The Source, 3/3/06). The Ryan White CARE Act was enacted in 1990 to provide treatment and care for people with HIV/AIDS and was last reauthorized in 2000.

The reauthorizing legislation would make the following changes to current law:

  • create a tier system to distribute funds to states based on the number of AIDS cases over the past five years rather than via the current system of distribution to eligible metropolitan areas cities with 2,000 or more AIDS cases in the past five years;
  • require that the secretary of Health and Human Services develop a list of antiretroviral drugs that must be provided to patients through the AIDS Drug Assistance Program;
  • change the formulas for funding calculations to include HIV cases in addition to AIDS cases;
  • require that 75 percent of the CARE Act allocation be spent on core services. Core services are currently undefined in the bill, but the Health Resources and Services Administration, which administers the CARE Act, defines them as “outpatient and ambulatory health services, including substance abuse treatment, and mental health treatment…for individuals and families with HIV disease;”
  • direct unused funds from states into the AIDS Drug Assistance Programs federal and state funded programs that provide HIV/AIDS-related medications to low-income, uninsured and underinsured HIV-positive people; and
  • alter the requirements for CARE Act grantees by requiring that they observe the confidentiality, informed consent, and counseling requirements set forth in the law only when they are conducting HIV testing with federal funds.