Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar requesting a briefing on the Trump Administration’s initiative to end the HIV epidemic in America. President Trump announced an ambitious goal of a 75 percent reduction in new HIV infections in five years and at least 90 percent reduction in ten years.
The Committee is interested in learning more about the Administration’s efforts to end the epidemic given other Trump Administration proposals that appear to stymie instead of further the goal of reducing HIV, such as reductions in funding, limiting Medicaid eligibility, and access to care concerns.
“With over one million Americans currently living with HIV, and 50,000 newly infected every year, HIV remains one of our nation’s greatest public health challenges, but it is an area where we have made significant progress in recent years," Pallone wrote to Secretary Azar. “As we move forward, working together to fight this generational public health challenge, we are interested in learning more about the initiative announced during the President’s State of the Union and the actions HHS intends to take to meet the goal of ending the HIV epidemic."
As part of the Committee’s inquiry into the Administration’s initiative, Pallone is requesting a briefing, as well as answers to a series of questions, including:
* Clarifying the Administration’s position on needle exchange programs given their role in arresting the spread of HIV, which has been complicated by the opioid epidemic;
* Explaining how the Administration will ensure that individuals with HIV do not lose access to Medicaid as a result of waivers that condition eligibility on work requirements or authorize enrollment caps;
* Explaining how HHS will reconcile the goal of targeting in-need communities with the President’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposal, which proposed cutting funding for the Secretary’s Minority AIDS Initiative Fund (SMAIF);
* Addressing how proposing to eliminate funding for the AIDS Education and Training Centers (AETCs) and the Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) program, as proposed in the Administration’s FY2019 budget, furthers the Administration’s initiative to end HIV; and,
* Providing further information on how changes to the Title X program announced last week - that could lead to qualified family planning and preventive health care providers losing their funding - will impact the Administration’s efforts to diagnose and treat HIV.
