The appointment of Jeffrey S. Crowley as director of the Office of National AIDS Policy has drawn praise from a wide spectrum of AIDS advocates. The position has sometimes been referred to as the "AIDS czar."The openly-gay Crowley is a policy wonk with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Medicare, Medicaid and other government reimbursement programs that pay for HIV services. That background should prove crucial during the coming debate on health care reform, where some may seek to end current HIV programs and roll coverage into programs of general medical care.
He built his expertise over 14 years working at places like the National Association of People With AIDS and, most recently, at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute.
It's a "brilliant" selection, said David Munar, a policy advocate with the AIDS Foundation of Chicago and chairman of the board of NAPWA. "The administration made a strategic choice about someone who knows health care above all else, so they got a two-fer; he is passionate about HIV and he knows health care systems."
The President's budget, released the same day as the appointment, pledged "to detect, prevent and treat HIV/AIDS domestically, especially in underserved populations." The details of what that means will not be released until April.
The pledge follows a year in which President George W. Bush and Congress decided to flat fund domestic HIV prevention programs and increase Ryan White CARE programs by only 3.4 percent, far less than what is needed. Courtesy Pridesource.com
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