Letter to Speaker Hastert on CARE Act Reauthorization

September 28, 2006

The Honorable J. Dennis Hastert
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Speaker:

On behalf of an estimated 42,000 Illinoisans living with HIV/AIDS, I am writing to ask you to please take steps necessary to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act this year. The CARE Act is the nation’s flagship response to HIV/AIDS domestically and a critical funding source for HIV-related healthcare, treatment, and essential support services for tens of thousands of low-income Illinoisans living with HIV/AIDS.

The process to reauthorize the CARE Act is now at a critical juncture. Developed with bipartisan and bicameral leadership, H.R. 6143 passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee on September 20, 2006, and awaits further action in both chambers of Congress.

Under provisions of current law, Illinois and several other jurisdictions across the country—including California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington—are vulnerable to steep funding reductions next year unless reauthorization legislation is enacted. Current law will require the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration to factor the number of name-based HIV cases reported in each state in making FY07 CARE Act awards. Because Illinois switched from a code-based to a name-based reporting system only eight months ago, our federal CARE Act awards could be dramatically reduced without new legislation. Steep reductions in federal CARE Act funding would diminish the availability of HIV-related services across Illinois and hurt low-income individuals whose very lives depend on CARE Act assistance.

While we do not agree with all provisions of the current legislation, we acknowledge the hard work that has gone into crafting the bill in ways that attempt to balance many competing interests and views. We are grateful that the bill’s authors worked diligently to devise a method to include code-based data in funding distribution formulas. For Illinois, the inclusion of code-based data is absolutely crucial to the integrity of our systems of care, which increasingly serve large numbers of vulnerable women, families, and people of color. We also applaud efforts to assist states and cities with emerging HIV/AIDS epidemics.

We continue to believe that the most significant barrier to securing support for the bill is inadequate appropriations. Under the new law, Illinois could sustain 3-4% in funding cuts to its more than $70 million in CARE Act awards. We believe funding cuts to Illinois could have been much greater had authors of the bill embraced other provisions under their consideration. The provisions allowing code-based data, we believe, mitigate much large funding cuts that would have resulted in destabilizing reductions in care and services.

In order to prevent funding cuts to Illinois and to build support for swift passage of the bill, we urge you to support increased CARE Act appropriations immediately and across all CARE Act titles and programs. Doing so can ensure no client or jurisdiction is adversely affected from newly adopted provisions.

We are committed to helping secure reauthorization this year, and hope you will assist us in this effort. Please do not hesitate to call on us if we can be of any assistance to you or your staff.

Sincerely,

Mark Ishaug
Executive Director