America Living With AIDS

* drug treatment to help individuals stop using or injecting drugs or adopt
safer drug use practices; and
* social services, including a range of housing options and income maintenance, without which medical advances may be beyond the grasp of those
who could most benefit from them.
2. HIV-related services should be expanded to facilities where underserved populations receive health care and human services, in part to ensure their increased
participation in trials of investigational new therapies.
3. HIV education and training programs for health care providers should be
improved and expanded, and better methods should be developed to disseminate state-of-the-art clinical information about HIV disease, as well as drug and
alcohol use, to the full range of health care providers.
The Commission believes all health care providers have an ethical responsibility
to care for people with HIV disease. In order to equip providers to better counsel and care for people with HIV disease, government at all levels and local agencies and institutions must develop more effective education programs and methods for getting the information to all providers, particularly primary care
providers.
Programs to train health care providers to recognize and manage drug and
alcohol use must be expanded, and programs that integrate treatment of drug
use with primary care must be created and supported. The Commission believes
more federal funds are needed for these efforts.
4. Federal, state, and local entities should provide support for training, technical
assistance, supervisory staff, and program coordination to acknowledge and
support the family members, friends, and volunteers who are an integral part of
the care system of a person with HIV disease.
HEALTH CARE FINANCING
1. Universal health care coverage should be provided for all persons living in the
United States to ensure access to quality health care services.
The Commission believes universal health care coverage is a necessary step to
ensuring access to quality health care. This coverage should be comprehensive
and should include prescription drugs. In the interim, the Commission recommends a series of immediate short-term steps to address the urgent problem of
inadequate coverage for people with HIV disease.