AIDS Watch Ohio 2012 info coming soon!

Given the success of AIDS Watch Ohio 2011, the Ohio AIDS Coalition is planning to assist community members with follow-up appointments with key legislators and public officials.

OAC is committed to bringing the needs of consumers and community members to policymakers through legislative visits, community forums and other meetings. Stay tuned for more information about OAC’s advocacy and empowerment training efforts.

Dose of Change: The Craft of AIDS Advocacy

Dose of Change is a place for U.S. domestic AIDS advocates to build skills, share knowledge, and connect with one another. This site is a project of AIDS Foundation of Chicago made possible, in part, by generous support from the National AIDS Fund.

Securing Health Care for People with HIV/AIDS:
An Advocate’s Roadmap on Implementing Health Care Reform and Bridging Current and On-going Access to Care Gaps

Prepared by: Harvard Law School Health Law and Policy Clinic and Treatment Access Expansion Project

The passage of health care reform in March of 2010 coupled with the announcement of a National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) in July 2010 signal important steps forward in the fight to secure health care for the most vulnerable populations. Provisions in the health care reform law – including expansion of Medicaid, increased funding for prevention, the creation of state-based health insurance exchanges, as well as the enactment of numerous regulatory checks on the insurance industry – will undoubtedly improve access to care for people living with HIV and AIDS. However, there are significant gaps and limitations in both health care reform and NHAS: many of the reforms that will most benefit people living with HIV and AIDS do not go into effect until 2014; the overall effectiveness of many important provisions in the reform law relies on successful federal agency rule-making and implementation over the next several years; and while NHAS provides an outline for some major steps toward increasing access to care, it is largely silent as to the expansion of care and treatment until key reform provisions go into effect in 2014. Ongoing advocacy efforts are needed to address these limitations and close these gaps.

To read the entire document, click here