AIDS Activists Protest Proposed Cuts to Florida’s Medicaid Project AIDS Care Waiver Program
Miami AIDS activists staged a protest on Tuesday in front of the Torch of Friendship to protest Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's (R) proposed cuts to the state's Medicaid Project AIDS Care Waiver Program, the Miami Herald reports (Feijoo, Miami Herald, 1/23). Project AIDS Care is a Medicaid waiver program that provides home and community-based services to eligible recipients who would otherwise require hospitalization or nursing care. PAC waiver recipients must demonstrate a "deterioration in functions that places them at risk of hospitalization or nursing facility admission were it not for the provision of waiver services" (St. Lucie County Health Department Web site, 1/24). According to the Miami Herald, Bush proposed eliminating $10 million in funding to the program in his budget plan for fiscal year 2002 (Miami Herald, 1/23). However, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel previously reported the proposed cut is $5 million (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 1/23). According to representatives from agencies that coordinate with the waiver program, less funding would reduce the amount of services provided to people with HIV/AIDS. "This is terrible. If we stop all the services that we give to the patients, their quality of life will lower. And honestly, the lower the quality of life is, the greater the possibility of death," Arturo Alvarez, a case manager for the League Against AIDS, said (Miami Herald, 1/23).
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