MAP Advocate
NEW PLAN EASES IMPACT OF CUTS; COMP SEX ED BILL SLATED
FOR INTRODUCTION; MINORS' ACCESS TO HEALTH SERVICES THREATENED
[Posted February 12, 2003]
Health officials came up with an alternative plan for cutting $1.2 million out of the Department of Health's HIV/STD community prevention budgets. While still having a diminishing effect, the plan redirects reductions away from core efforts such as HIV testing or outreach and education efforts targeting communities at highest risk for infections . . . Announcement of plans to introduce bills to protect comprehensive sexual health education is slated for Valentine's Day . . . House conservatives push plan to eliminate confidential health services for teens.
Click here to get directly to the Minnesota State Legislature's Web site.
Click below to read articles related to HIV policy in Minnesota, the
United States and the world.
Editorial: Pawlenty budget / The pain isn't widely shared Star Tribune
[February 19, 2003]
Minnesota
losing ground in AIDS fight, experts tell Coleman Pioneer Press [February
16, 2003]
High schoolers urge Minnesota legislators to support sex ed Star Tribune
[February 15, 2003]
In God's
Name City Pages [February 5, 2003
Tim
Pawlenty's New Deal City Pages [February 5, 2003]
Cooler heads prevailed. Health Department officials were given the opportunity to come up with an alternative to the $1.2 million unallotment cut in HIV/STD prevention community grants initially proposed by Gov. Pawlenty. They came back with a plan to redistribute the reductions in such a way as to protect core HIV and STD prevention services including counseling and testing, the statewide HIV information and referral hotline, and most community-based services providing outreach and education in high risk communities.
However, cuts in basic county public health services were made deeper through this plan, important research efforts to help better direct prevention efforts got shelved, and in other unallotment decisions, access to health services was curtailed.
While the basic system for HIV and STD prevention was salvaged, overall efforts to respond to HIV and STDs in Minnesota remain diminished.
Rep. Tim Wilken [R-Eagan] introduced a bill to eliminate minors access to confidential health services. HF 352 would essentially require teens who might want screening for HIV or STDs or have questions about pregnancy or substance abuse to show up with a permission slip from their parents before they can receive health care services. The bill prohibits schools from providing any such services - i.e., no condoms available through school-based services - and repeals the state's minors' consent law.
According to the American Medical Association (AMA), confidential health services for adolescents have become increasingly important as the severity and prevalence of adolescent health problems have increased over the past two decades.
The good news is, according to AMA’s Council on Scientific Affairs, most adolescents (55 percent) discuss their use of reproductive health services with their parents, and a greater number of adolescents involve their parents in the event of an unplanned pregnancy.
The bad news: AMA reported 25 percent of teens would not seek medical care if it meant their parents finding out they are sexually active.
To learn more about HF 352 and where MAP stands on the minor's consent issue, please go to our 2003 - 2004 Action Agenda page.
The winds at the Capitol point toward an ominous future for health care assistance. Deep, deep cuts in Medical Assistance [Medicaid] and General Assistance Medical Care are feared and anticipated. Nationally, it is estimated that half the people living with HIV depend upon Medicaid and programs such as this for basic health care.
Some HIV specific services, including HIV case management also depend, in part, on MA dollars. The budget details will also reveal what the future holds for HIV and STD prevention. Will there be cuts? Will the dollars be redirected to an abstinence-until-marriage focus? Will efforts be made to eliminate funding for groups that serve gay and bisexual men?
Of course, lawmakers still need to decide what to do about the current budget. Check back to our Web site. We'll be updating regularly as the budget news unfolds.
This Valentine's Day, spread the message that love and truth go hand in hand. Let your legislators know you are thinking of them and let cupid help you deliver the message that young people need complete and medically accurate information to stay healthy and safe.
In your valentine, ask lawmakers to support comprehensive sex Ed because 1) comprehensive sex Ed works in encouraging young people to delay the onset of sexual activity and leads to greater use of contraception among those who do choose to be sexually active, 2) 80 percent of Minnesotans support comprehensive sex Ed and, 3) the alternative, abstinence-only until marriage programs, are not scientifically accurate and have not proven to be effective.
Then, check your inbox on the 13th for a Valentine from MAP that you
can forward to your friends to let them know why you support comprehensive
sex Ed and why they should, too.
But this year is different. It may not sound like it on the surface. Sure, every year we fight battles over comprehensive sex Ed, minor's consent and funding for HIV care. Every year it has been close, but more often than not we have come out on top. But this year is different because our opponents have the votes to win. Many of our friends in the House and Senate are gone, along with some of the moderates who we could count on to come to our side when we needed them. Gone too is a governor who would veto attacks on sexual health services.
Without a big show of support from people who care about how Minnesota fights this epidemic, this session may not end with the same sigh of relief we have had in previous sessions. Don't wait - sign up now for AIDS Action Day by clicking here.
Lead authors are Rep. Jim Davnie (DFL- Minneapolis) and Sen. Mee Moua (DFL-St. Paul). The current mandate for K-12 schools to teach HIV and STD prevention has been muddied with language by social conservatives that encourage a focus on abstinence-only until marriage and has allowed opponents of comprehensive sex Ed to distort the law and pressure school districts to only teach abstinence.
Sex Ed For Life will be holding a press conference on February 14th. Click here to see the rest of Map's action agenda for the 2003-04 session.
Former State Representative Kevin Goodno will lead Department of Human Services. Goodno worked with MAP while in the House on pharmacy access, STD prevention, transfer of responsibility for Ryan White to DHS and other issues. He faces a tough task of being directed to make deep, deep cuts in health care funding and income support.
Hospital CEO Dianne Mandernach is the head of the Department of Health has little experience in public health but has come out supporting comprehensive sex Ed and other prevention programs.
Bush also announced on Friday that he would seek $16 billion for domestic
HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment as part of his fiscal year 2004 budget
proposal, a 7 percent increase over previous years. The proposal will
include a $93 million increase for HIV/AIDS research and a $100 million
increase to purchase antiretroviral drugs for uninsured patients through
AIDS Drug Assistance Programs.
Although the proposal is a marked improvement over previous budgets that have called for flat-funding for HIV, it is still not enough to address the needs that are out there and jeopardizes state ADAP and Housing and Opportunities for People With AIDS programs. Activists also need to be aware of how the money is being spent. Much of the money for care is going into pharmaceuticals and concerns remain about prevention dollars being targeted to unproven, anti-gay abstinence programs.
Although the commitment of money was hailed by some, HIV activists are hoping that the details of the proposal do not go unnoticed. By not allotting enough dollars to the Global Fund, Bush has proposed a "go it alone" plan that actually robs money from child survival, orphan support and development assistance priorities in order to fund the new AIDS initiative.
The price of government has been dropping in Minnesota since 1999. Surprised to hear that? Yup, through the 90s, the cost of government as a percentage of Minnesotan's income was about 17.5%. Now it's around 15.5%. Not only has the tax burden been going down, but it's been shifted more and more from broad based, progressive state taxes to the local property taxes - the one's least responsive to a person's income and ability to pay.
Some say the reason the State has a budget crisis is that government spending has been going up. The reality is it hasn't. What we did was pull back state spending and cut taxes. Now we are told the only choice for Minnesotan's is to make deep, deep cuts. However, if things like HIV and STD prevention, health education for kids, and health care and social services for communities affected by HIV are important, we may need to ask if we should have more options.
Maybe, just maybe, the solution to the State's budget woes can be a balanced mix of spending adjustments and inching up the cost of government a bit back toward those pre-1999 levels. Care about HIV? Thought taxes had nothing to do with that? We all may need to think again - especially our Governor and State Legislators.
Senate and House leaders have agreed to a deal that will lead to ratification of the state labor contract that went into effect in 2001. However, the deal includes dropping domestic partner benefits. State employees who are using their state insurance benefits for partners will have until July to find other coverage.
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