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VIDEO: Youth HIV/AIDS Activist Venton Jones at the White House

This is brilliant. The White House hosted a discussion on Thursday entitled "Moving Toward an AIDS-free Generation." Representing Black gay leadership on the panel was R20 friend Venton Jones, the 28-year-old communications and education manager of the National Black Gay Men's Advocacy Coalition.

Watch the discussion AFTER THE JUMP ...

Venton spoke eloquently on the need to inspire a new generation of HIV/AIDS awareness and activism. "It's important to remember the activism of thirty years ago when," said Jones, who has master's degree in health care administration from the University of Texas and will soon begin doctoral studies.

"I wasn't even born then. But the disease at that time was a death sentence and [became] a call to action. There were so many people who were dying at that time—the brothers, lovers, mothers, friends. As we progress with treatment options, it's important that we address the stigma and homophobia that exists around the LGBT community. And we need more opportunities to allow people to share their stories."

The discussion included Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett, AIDS Foundation of Chicago's David Munar, Office of National AIDS POlicy Director Dr. Grant Colfax, University of Alabama at Birmingham's Dr. Michael Sagg, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Rep. Barbara Lee (CA). The panel was hosted by Emmy- and Academy Award-nominated actress Rosie Perez, who is a member of the President's Advisory Commissionm on HIV/AIDS.

Watch the discussion AFTER THE JUMP ...

White House Announces Series of Nationwide LGBT Conferences

The White House is launching a nationwide series of conferences to reach out to LGBT Americans. Via email from the White House Press Office:

The White House Office of Public Engagement (OPE) will partner with key Departments and Agencies to host a series of conferences around the country specifically focused on LGBT Americans. From February to June 2012, OPE will convene these White House LGBT Conferences to provide grassroots leaders, community organizers, advocates, students, and interested citizens an opportunity to hear directly from the Administration on our efforts to ensure health, well-being, security, justice, and equality for LGBT Americans. ...

Participants will receive important updates from senior Administration officials and have the opportunity to learn about Federal government resources and opportunities through workshop sessions. Future White House LGBT Conferences will be held in other locations throughout the country and focus on topics such as Housing & Homelessness, Safe Schools & Communities, and HIV/AIDS Prevention.

The first event is scheduled will be the "White House LGBT Conference on Health" in Philadelphia on February 16th. That conference will feature remarks by Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. There's been significant progress on LGBT-related health care action items, such as launching the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and granting hospital visitation rights. There probably should be some questions about the Affordable Care Act and HIV/AIDS.

More details to follow.

WATCH LIVE: White House Conference on Bullying Prevention

The President and First Lady are delivering opening remarks at the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention, which began at 1030A/ET in the East Room.

Watch AFTER THE JUMP ...

In addition to President and Mrs. Obama, the conference includes Administration officials, teachers, students, parents and community leaders. White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett will lead the morning session. At 1220P/ET there will be a special Facebook LIVE event via the White House Facebook account. Submit your questions HERE.

Watch AFTER THE JUMP ...

Obama Rolls Back Bush's "Conscience Clause", Sanity Returns to Health Care Policy

Our latest op-ed for the Washington Blade:

Recent weeks have seen a relentless social conservative assault on gays, especially on non discrimination protections and health care. But a major win for our community happened quietly and without fanfare last week. The Obama administration announced it was finally rescinding most of the Bush-era health care provider “conscience clause” regulations that have been used to discriminate against gay men and lesbians, transgender people, patients with HIV/AIDS, and, of course, women seeking contraception or abortions.

The often-abused regulation was described as one of Bush’s “most controversial legacies.” That says a helluva lot about the Texas oilman who presided over the Iraq war. It allowed the federal bureaucracy to become a Petri dish of movement conservatism — complete with quasi-theocratic legal precedents and state-sponsored bigotry that bred contempt and prosecution for gay men, lesbians and the trans community.

The policy was a cruel joke coming from the same anti-choice, anti-science and anti-gay right-wing cultural Neanderthals that promoted “abstinence” to teens in this country — hello Bristol Palin — and to men and women in AIDS-ravaged Africa.

Read the full op-ed HERE. 

HHS Finalizes Hospital Visitation Rules Incl. Same Sex Partners

On April 15, President Obama ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create new rules for Medicare and Medicaid hospitals that would allow patients the right to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay. The Presidential Memorandum instructed HHS to develop rules that would prohibit hospitals from denying visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The memo can be read HERE.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued the regulation that will allow patients to decide whom they want by their bedside when they are sick—that includes same-sex partners, reports the White House Blog.

The new rules:

Require hospitals to explain to all patients their right to choose who may visit them during their inpatient stay, regardless of whether the visitor is a family member, a spouse, a domestic partner (including a same-sex domestic partner), or other type of visitor, as well as their right to withdraw such consent to visitation at any time.

Require hospitals have written policies and procedures detailing patients’ visitation rights, as well as the circumstances under which the hospitals may restrict patient access to visitors based on reasonable clinical needs.

Specify that all visitors chosen by the patient must be able to enjoy “full and equal” visitation privileges consistent with the wishes of the patient.

Update the Conditions of Participation (CoPs), which are the health and safety standards all Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals and critical access hospitals must meet, and are applicable to all patients of those hospitals regardless of payer source.

"Basic human rights—such as your ability to choose your own support system in a time of need—must not be checked at the door of America’s hospitals," says HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "Today’s rules help give ‘full and equal’ rights to all of us to choose whom we want by our bedside when we are sick, and override any objection by a hospital or staffer who may disagree with us for any non-clinical reason.”

The regulations will be effective 60 days after publication. Publication will be tomorrow morning in the Federal Register. They are officially called "Changes to the Hospital and Critical Access Hospital Conditions of Participation to Ensure Visitation Rights for All Patients."

Obama Releases AIDS Strategy; Focus on Testing, New Infections

President Barack Obama will convene HIV/AIDS experts at the White House this afternoon to launch the nation's first National HIV/AIDS Strategy. The strategy will aim to cut new infections in the U.S. by 25 percent over the next five years. A second goal will be to ensure that 85 percent of patients begin receiving care within three months of diagnosis.

The strategy will be formally released at The White House at 2PM ET—Rod 2.0 was invited but cannot attend—and can be read and downloaded HERE. The White House unveils the NHAS as the XVIII International AIDS Conference begins this weekend in Vienna.

The strategy will "concentrate HIV prevention efforts at the highest-risk population", which include men who have sex with men (MSM) and black Americans. Black men who have sex with men are at the highest risk.  The NHAS will also expand HIV screening of inmates and the Justice Department "would fast-track investigations of discrimination involving those with HIV," adds the Los Angeles Times.

But the strategy entails no new additional spending and some HIV/AIDS advocates are not impressed. Michael Weinstein, who heads the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, tells the LA Times: "We have thousands people on a waiting list for AIDS drugs. So, the whole premise is that we are going to test more and treat more. But we don't have the capacity. Why should anyone be tested if they don't have access to medications?"

New York City-based Housing Works is more blunt and calls the NHAS "a step backwards" and asks: "Would President Obama suggest that we only clean up 25 percent of the Gulf oil spill."

The NHAS come at the same the recession has created a major funding crisis for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. Over the weekend, the White House announced a $25 million emergency re-allocation to ADAP. HIV advocates say an additional $126M is needed.

Want to get tested? Click HERE for your closest location.

READ: Obama Admin. Statement on $25M Emergency AIDS Reallocation

An important update to a story we've been following at Rod 2.0. The recession has forced a number of states to slash funding to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, helps low-income HIV positive persons pay for their expensive, life-saving medications. Those in the program are disproportionately black, many of the men are gay or bisexual.

The Obama Administration has announced an emergency $25 million reallocation to federal ADAP funding. This statement by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was emailed overnight from HHS and the White House.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services took an important step to improve access to critical HIV/AIDS prescription drugs. The $25 million reallocated for AIDS drug assistance provides resources to States that have AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) waiting lists or have implemented strategies to contain costs and delay or prevent a waiting list.

This week, we improved access to critical HIV/AIDS prescription drugs and are continuing to work towards preventing, and ultimately eliminating, the need for ADAP waiting lists. Governors will soon receive a letter detailing how to access these funds. The Administration has been steadily increasing funding and while this is a significant infusion of funds, on top of more than $800 million already specifically allocated to the ADAP Program this year, the Federal government cannot do this alone--States and Pharmaceutical companies also need to do their part.

Improving access to care and treatment for people living with HIV is a top priority for HHS. These funds are just one part of a broader effort we are making to improve the health status of people living with HIV. Created under the Affordable Care Act, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan will provide a new health coverage option for Americans who have been uninsured for at least six months and have been unable to get health coverage because of a health condition—including HIV. This option will be available until 2014, when insurers will be banned from discriminating against adults with pre-existing conditions.

As we reported two months ago for Black AIDS Weekly, the recession is crippling state/federal programs that provide life-sustaining antiretroviral medication to low-income people with HIV or AIDS. Eleven states have closed enrollment in ADAP. " Three other states have narrowed eligibility," adds the New York Times. "And two of them—Arkansas and Utah—have dropped scores of people from the program."

HIV/AIDS service organizations say "an emergency appropriation of at least $126 million" is needed, reports the Washington Blade.

Dr. Helene Gayle to Lead White House HIV/AIDS Council

Internationally recognized HIV/AIDS expert Dr. Helene Gayle, president and chief executive of the charity CARE USA, has been named to chair the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

Gayle, former head of AIDS research at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, will advise President Barack Obama on fighting the epidemic, which has infected more than 1 million Americans and 33 million people globally.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made the announcement at the 2009 National HIV Prevention Conference. Gayle also headed AIDS efforts at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This is an extremely qualified person for this position, kudos to the White House.

SIXTY Members of Congress to Sebelius: No Public Option, No Bill

No public option, no health care "reform". Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake reports 60 House Democrats—led by Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Barbara Lee (CA) and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (CA)—sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius last night, drawing a line in the sand and "making it crystal clear that if there is no public plan coming out of a conference bill, they won't vote for it."

The letter reads in part: "To take the public option off the table would be a grave error; passage in the House of Representatives depends upon inclusion of it.  .. Any legislation that moves forward through both chambers, and into a final proposal for the President's signature, MUST contain a public option."

Signatories include Barney Frank (MA), the powerful gay Banking Committee chair, and strong Congressional Black Caucus LGBT allies such as Sheila Jackson Lee (TX), John Conyers (MI), Alcee Hastings (FL), Maxine Waters (CA), Keith Ellison (MN), Andre Carson (IN) and Emmanuel Cleaver (MO). Is your representative on the list?

Sixty members signed the letter but Rep. Anthony Weiner puts the actual number at "probably around 100."

In related news: Within the last few hours President Obama and Secretary Sebelius have attempted to distance themselves from their weekend remarks where both said a public option is "no longer essential" for health insurance "reform". "Everyone thought the progressives could be taken for granted," writes Joe Sudbay at AMERICAblog. "They can't be."

Memo to the White House: At some point, you have to dance with the people who brought you to the party.

UPDATE: Hamsher is on Rachel Maddow right now discussing this. Will post video when available.

RNC: Despite Obama's Concessions, We Still Oppose Health Care Reform

How is that bi-partisanship coming along? Despite President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sending signals that the public option of health care "reform" is "no longer essential, Republican Party leaders are still not interested. Not even in the idea of "co-ops." Democratic "concessions are just not going to win" GOP support, says Sen. Jon Kyl.

How shocking. Republicans refusing to support a Democratic president. Who could have predicted this?

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