Doug Hoffer’s promoted diary on the AHS budget is the bigger picture, and here’s just one piece of the inhumane priorities promulgated by the Dubie-Douglas-Lunderville Administration. We could easily call it the “Death by Budget” plan for low-income Vermonters with AIDS/HIV.

As proposed by Agency of Human Services Secretary Rob Hoffman from Health Department Commissioner Wendy Davis, M.D., the Health Department’s budget will:

* eliminate medication subsidies for AIDS/HIV drugs entirely (a 100% cut).

* cut funding for support services for Vermonters with HIV/AIDS by 40%,  $135k.

* cut funding for syringe exchanges by 50%, gutting an important prevention program.

The total damage amounts to a 57% cut in funding for AIDS/HIV-related programs. Meanwhile the rest of the Health Department’s budget is being cut an average of 4%. Nearly half the total cuts from the Health Department’s budget (excluding federal funding) came from the AIDS/HIV programs.

Figures like those might make a Vermonter wonder – or perhaps choke – on reading some of the goals of the Health Department, such as these [emphasis added]:

The Health Department’s many programs and initiatives help Vermonters live fuller, healthier lives from birth through old age.

* We focus on prevention, which is perhaps the best investment that can be made in health.

[…]

* We promote and improve access to immunizations, mammograms, HIV/AIDS testing and care, treatment for mental disorders, and prenatal care.

The assumption behind the cuts appears to be that federal funding will pick up the slack. But according to Vermont Cares Executive Director Peter Jacobsen, that’s not realistic, and even if federal money does materialize for some of the cuts, it will take a long time to secure those funds. And in the meantime, clients would  be forced to go without medications and/or services.

Those Death by Budget cuts will also have a severe impact on AIDS/HIV service providers, mostly nonprofits like  CARES, which get part of their funding through the Health Department. If these cuts go through as proposed, Jacobsen is looking at laying off a third to half of his staff and seeing a cut of 17% in his agency’s budget.

AIDS is not over. Nor is it a ho-hum manageable disease, although we’ve made enough treatment progress that some PWAs are making it to Medicare, rather than dying in their early adulthood. But if the Dubie-Douglas-Lunderville Health Department budget passes without significant changes, the lives of some low-income people with AIDS/HIV will be at risk.