S.Amdt. 4216

1. Adds SEC. __. SENSE OF THE SENATE CONCERNING UNITED STATES HIV TREATMENT PROGRAMS wherever appropriate

   Adds a section

   Inserted: SEC. __. SENSE OF THE SENATE CONCERNING UNITED STATES HIV TREATMENT PROGRAMS.

   Inserted: (a) Findings.--The Senate finds that--

   Inserted: (1) it has been over 25 years since AIDS was first recognized as an epidemic in the United States;

   Inserted: (2) since we first recognized AIDS, it has become the greatest public health challenge of the last two decades;

   Inserted: (3) globally there have been more than 22,000,000 AIDS related deaths, 500,000 in the United States alone;

   Inserted: (4) today in America, there are 1,000,000 individuals living with HIV/AIDS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

   Inserted: (5) more African Americans, women, and individuals in rural areas (especially in the South) are infected and dying from HIV than ever before;

   Inserted: (6) according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African Americans account for more AIDS diagnoses, individuals estimated to be living with AIDS, and HIV-related deaths than any other racial or ethnic group in the United States;

   Inserted: (7) the percentage of AIDS diagnoses occurring among African Americans has risen from 25 percent in 1985 to approximately 50 percent in 2004 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

   Inserted: (8) according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of AIDS diagnoses for black adults and adolescents was 10 times the rate for whites and nearly 3 times the rate for Hispanics;

   Inserted: (9) the rate of AIDS diagnoses for black men was 8 times the rate for white men according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

   Inserted: (10) early in the epidemic, HIV infection and AIDS were diagnosed for relatively few women;

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   Inserted: (11) today, the HIV/AIDS epidemic represents a growing and persistent health threat to women in the United States, especially young women and women of color, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

   Inserted: (12) according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, women accounted for 27 percent of new AIDS cases in 2004; (13) of these women newly diagnosed with AIDS, 67 percent were African Americans and 15 percent were Latin;

   Inserted: (14) the only diseases causing more deaths of women were cancer and heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

   Inserted: (15) according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, women were slightly less likely than men to receive prescriptions for the most effective treatments for HIV infection;

   Inserted: (16) an estimated 4,128 women with AIDS died, representing 25 percent of individuals with AIDS who died in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

   Inserted: (17) according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, women with AIDS made up an increasing part of the epidemic;

   Inserted: (18) in 1992, women accounted for an estimated 14 percent of adults and adolescents living with AIDS in the United States;

   Inserted: (19) by the end of 2005, the proportion described in paragraph (18) had grown to 23 percent;

   Inserted: (20) women of color are particularly at risk for AIDS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

   Inserted: (21) data from the 2005 census show that together, black and Hispanic women represent 24 percent of all United States women with AIDS;

   Inserted: (22) however, black and Hispanic women accounted for 82 percent of the estimated total of AIDS diagnoses for women in 2005;

   Inserted: (23) the rate of AIDS diagnoses for black women was nearly 23 times the rate for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;

   Inserted: (24) the HIV epidemic is moving to the South, with seven of the States with the 10 highest AIDS case rates now located in the South;

   Inserted: (25) in the Government Accountability Office's analysis of the Ryan White formulas, the Office determined that counting HIV cases would mean that Southern grantees would generally have received more funding;

   Inserted: (26) the Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported that the number of AIDS cases in the United States rose by 1 percent between 2000 and 2001 and 9 percent in the South, while AIDS cases fell by 8 percent in the Northeast;

   Inserted: (27) while only 36 percent of the United States population lives in the South, 40 percent of all people living with AIDS and 46 percent of new AIDS cases live in the Southern region;

   Inserted: (28) according to the Health Resources and Services Administration, 531,000 individuals each year receive at least one medical, health, or related support service from a Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program provider;

   Inserted: (29) in recognition of the changing face of AIDS in the United States, after deliberation for more a year, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the Senate reported out a bill to revamp the funding formulas for the domestic care program (Ryan White) on December 6, 2006, by a unanimous vote;

   Inserted: (30) the Senate passed the Ryan White revised funding formula changes by unanimous consent on December 6, 2006, and in doing so, the Senate reaffirmed that Federal resources for HIV/AIDS should go to where the epidemic is today and will be tomorrow, not where it was a decade ago;

   Inserted: (31) the House of Representatives passed the Ryan White revised funding changes on December 9, 2006, unanimously;

   Inserted: (32) the President reaffirmed his commitment to providing care for those with HIV when he signed the newly revised funding formulas to Ryan White on December 19, 2006;

   Inserted: (33) the Senate reaffirmed its commitment to the Ryan White funding formulas with an amendment to the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008 (H.R. 3043, 110th Congress) on October 23, 2007;

   Inserted: (34) the Ryan White amendment referred to in paragraph (33) was accepted by the Senate by a roll call vote of 65-28; and

   Inserted: (35) that amendment stated that "[n]otwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds shall be made available under this Act to modify the HIV/AIDS funding formulas under title XXVI of the Public Health Service Act".

   Inserted: (b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate that--

   Inserted: (1) the Senate acknowledges that the face of HIV is changing and that funding formulas for care programs should recognize the changing demographics of the disease domestically;

   Inserted: (2) the Senate supports the Ryan White program, authorized under title XXVI of the Public Health Service Act, and reaffirms that this program makes the right care and treatment possible for low-income, uninsured and under-insured men, women, children, and youth with no other way to meet their medical care and support needs; and

   Inserted: (3) the Senate reaffirms that Federal resources for HIV/ AIDS should go to where the epidemic is today and will be tomorrow, not where it was a decade ago, by following the newly authorized Ryan White funding formulas.

   The amendment doesn't say where this goes; the clerk decides.

   Original wording

   At the appropriate place, insert the following:

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As printed