For shame, Senator Clinton!

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is holding up renewal of the primary federal law that battles HIV/AIDS, the 1990 Ryan White Act, causing a rift among activists on the subject and threatening approval of the legislation this year.

Clinton (D-N.Y.) said she opposes the measure because it would lower funding for her home state. But some AIDS groups also see broader political motives at work. Other states that would lose out include California, Florida and Illinois -- all places Clinton would need to win if she seeks the presidency. Her critics also note that many of the states that would receive higher funding under the new formula are rural and Southern, which tend to vote Republican.

Clinton was the sole vote against the Ryan White Act reauthorization bill that passed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in May. Ever since, she and other senators have been negotiating to find a consensus that would allow the measure to pass by acclamation before Congress's scheduled adjournment at the end of September. But a compromise has not been found.

"With a bipartisan bill like this, and with time limited, we want to have something that would go through without objection," said Michael Mahaffey, spokesman for the health committee. But, he added, Clinton "objects to the bill in the form passed out of committee."

Observers note that her objection is to a new funding formula which will give more funding to Southern and rural states, areas where AIDS is increasing at a faster rate than in other parts of the country. Interestingly enough, she is seeking to preserve extra funding for states that she needs to win the Democrat nomination and the presidency in 2008.

Even AIDS activists are critical.

Asked why Clinton might countenance lower funding for Southern and rural states, Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the nation's largest community-based HIV/AIDS medical provider, said, "I don't think she expects to carry the South."

Looks like Lady MacClinton is prepared to have the blood of AIDS patients on her hands if that's what it takes to win the White House.

Posted by: Greg at 10:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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