AIDS Activist Brings Initiatives On Condoms, Drug Prices To Calif. Ballot
Michael Weinstein, the president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, is pouring millions into the campaigns to require actors in adult films to use condoms and cap the price state health programs pay for prescription drugs. In other news, New York is trying to bring innovative ideas to the effort to bring HIV under control.
KQED:
Sex, Drugs And The Controversial AIDS Activist
As an AIDS activist 30 years ago, Michael Weinstein helped defeat an inflammatory ballot measure that could have quarantined Californians with the disease. Today, Weinstein has turned to the ballot to advance his own controversial vision for public health. President of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has clinics around the world, Weinstein is the architect of two initiatives Californians will vote on in November: Proposition 60, which would require actors in adult films to use condoms, and Proposition 61, which would cap the price state health programs pay for prescription drugs. (Rosenhall, 7/13)
PBS Newshour:
‘Ending AIDS’ In New York Means Finding The Most Vulnerable
Nearly one in 10 Americans living with HIV live in New York, where an ambitious plan aims to cut new infections and HIV-related deaths. But it has serious challenges, including keeping people on their meds, and stopping the spread among IV drug users. (Brangham, 7/13)
In other California ballot measure news —
California Healthline:
Hospital Finance Measure On State Ballot May Stump Voters
California voters will be asked to weigh in this November on a hospital financing measure so politically and financially complicated that they might be tempted to avoid it altogether. The initiative, Proposition 52, would make permanent the “Hospital Quality Assurance Fee,” which the state collects from private hospitals to bring in additional federal dollars for Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid health care program for the poor. The federal government matches money that California puts up to fund Medi-Cal services. (Bartolone, 7/13)