Utah legislators delay action on federal HIV grant due to reform concerns

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah GOP legislative leaders' animosity toward any federal health care reform has put in limbo a longtime federal grant that helps pay for drugs and other services for Utahns who are extremely ill or terminal with HIV/AIDS.

An annual post-session review of federal grants that require approval of the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee took an unexpected turn and got political in tone when Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, and other top GOP leaders started asking about a routine federal grant that provides "life and death" drugs to Utahns who have HIV/AIDS-related health problems.

The grant program is named after Ryan White, a teenage hemophiliac who died from AIDS complications in the 1980s after contracting the HIV virus during a transfusion to treat the blood disorder.

"Doesn't Obamacare pay for this?" asked Waddoups, referring to the new health insurance reform package passed by Democrats in Congress and signed two weeks ago by President Barack Obama without a single Republican vote.

Waddoups said he would not vote for the grant, which has never been questioned in previous years, until all his questions were answered. Waddoups noted that voicing his concerns should not be read as intending harm or preventing necessary medications from being delivered to Utahns who receive them under the grant. The earliest the grant will be considered is at the committee's next scheduled meeting in May.

State Department of Health administrators did their best to answer the questions, noting that they had received no prior notice that lawmakers would be asking questions about that grant or any others on the list. The inaction puts the health department, already pinched by two years of budget cutbacks, in the position of finding the $420,000 from other areas in agency programs to cover the cost of providing the services through April.

Democratic members of the committee balked at putting off action, noting that doing so puts the health department in a more precarious financial circumstance should the committee decide not to approve the grant.

Health department administrators said the program saves lives every month, has been approved by the Legislature's Health Department budget review committee and never has been opposed before by the appropriations committee members.

Each year, the state puts up nearly $2 million, while the federal government puts up nearly $4 million, and needy, sick people get anti-HIV drugs and are placed in a long-term health-risk pool.