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Contacts: Cindy Parmenter
Director of Communications
(303) 692-2013 – Office
(303) 891-8382 – Pager
Lori Maldonado
Public Information Specialist
(303) 692-2028
(303) 921-8598 - Cell
For Immediate Release Thursday, July 15, 2004
NEW FUNDS TO ELIMINATE COLORADO WAITING LIST FOR AIDS MEDICATIONS
DENVER – The appropriation of $2,991,477 in new state funds to the state’s Ryan White AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) will end the waiting for approximately 315 low-income Coloradans, who are suffering from HIV/AIDS and who have been in line to begin receiving life saving anti-retroviral medications. The funds became available on July 1.
The new recipients, who have been on a waiting list, will be added to the approximate 750 Colorado residents who already are receiving anti-retroviral therapy monthly through the state program. Persons eligible for the program have incomes of 300 percent of the federal poverty level or less.
Also, because of the appropriation, recommended by Governor Bill Owens and approved by the Colorado Legislature, some additional medications prescribed to treat opportunistic infections associated with HIV/AIDS, are being added again to the formulary after being removed in June 2003 because of the lack of funds. Enfuvirtide, a new anti-retroviral drug that may be indicated for a small percentage of HIV/AIDS patients, also will be added in limited supply to the list of medications.
Governor Owens said, “It is important that these individuals receive the medications that they need. I am pleased that we have been able to eliminate the current waiting list.”
Douglas H. Benevento, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment where the Ryan White program is based, said, “The Governor’s Office and this department have been working hard and cooperatively to provide the funds needed to be able to provide these life-saving medications to the people who need them. There shouldn’t be a waiting list for this kind of program.”
Daniel Garcia, a local AIDS activist and president of the Persons Living With HIV Action Network, said: "As a person living with AIDS, I am very appreciative to the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Colorado Legislature and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for working together to make sure that people living with HIV/AIDS in Colorado will have access to their life-saving medications. I applaud our elected and appointed officials for understanding that it is more cost effective to keep people living with HIV/AIDS healthy and out of our emergency health care system."
Earlier this year, Governor Owens also earmarked $204,000 in one-time funding for the program out of the $111.3 million in federal funds that the state received through the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. These funds were used to move approximately 30 persons from the waiting list into the program.
The $2.9 million for the Ryan White program was included in H.B.04-1421, which distributed interest collected on the state’s Tobacco Settlement Fund.
In addition, Benevento said the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee approved the Department of Public Health and Environment’s request to restore $204,375 in annual state funding to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, bringing the annual state allocation to $1,307,785 in addition to the $2,991,447 in tobacco settlement interest monies. The $204,375 in state funding was cut from the program budget last year as a part of 2003-2004 budget reductions necessitated by revenue shortfalls.
The program also is receiving approximately $5.1 million in federal funds for the current fiscal year.
Additional information about the Ryan AIDS Drug Assistance Program can be obtained by calling Scott Barnette, the program director, at (303) 692-2718.
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