O’Neill Institute Launches New Ryan White Policy Project

The O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University today announced the establishment of a new Ryan White Policy Project.  The project will consider issues that arise as the context in which the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program operates is altered both by scientific and technological advances and fundamental shifts in health care financing and service delivery with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The project will be conducted as a component of the Institute’s National HIV/AIDS Initiative and will be led by Jeffrey S. Crowley, MPH, Distinguished Scholar and Program Director of the National HIV/AIDS Initiative.  It will allow the O’Neill Institute to examine issues and evaluate policy proposals, conduct policy and legal research to offer innovative approaches to strengthening Ryan White, serve as a knowledgeable and trusted resource for Administration and Congressional policymakers, and serve as a neutral convener of a diverse array of stakeholders in order to review and consider critical policy issues.

Commenting on this new policy project, Lawrence Gostin, Faculty Director of the O’Neill Institute said, “America has made major progress in fighting HIV, but there is so much more to do. We need to fight the injustices of AIDS and to work towards a country (and a world) that sees the end of AIDS. Now is the time to redouble our efforts, and so I am very pleased that this project will provide a platform for O’Neill Institute scholars to contribute to lessening the suffering caused by AIDS and strive toward justice.”

Further, Mr. Crowley stated, “We can achieve the vision of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy in which new HIV infections in the United States become rare and all people with HIV have access to high quality, life extending care.  The Ryan White Program is one of our primary tools for making this vision a reality.  Therefore, we need to do the hard work to imagine new ways to make the program optimally effective and ensure it has the broadest possible public support.”

This project is being supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Gilead Sciences.  It also compliments other Institute policy work on supporting people with HIV in a changing health care environment supported by the George Gund Foundation.

BACKGROUND ON THE RYAN WHITE PROGRAM

First enacted in 1990 as an emergency response to a burgeoning epidemic, the Ryan White Program has grown to become a critical part of the HIV health care delivery system in the United States, providing health care services to nearly 500,000 people living with HIV.  It is the largest HIV-specific grant program in the U.S.  The program has been reauthorized four times, most recently in 2009, which authorized the program through September 2013.  Although the authorization for the program has lapsed, Congress has funded the program for the current year and there appears to be solid bipartisan support for the program.