Zackie Achmat

Achmat disclosed his HIV-positive status in 1998 and founded the Treatment Action Campaign. He has since fought to bring affordable AIDS drugs to South Africa, refusing to take the medications himself until they were more widely available to his compatriots. The South African government recently announced plans for a national AIDS drugs program.

His statement about Bush was not designed to bring the rapturous applause it received, he said. Instead, Bush’s policies leave him with an "enormous pain in my heart," he said.

In January, Bush announced a program that would provide $15 billion over five years to fight global AIDS. No money had yet been appropriated at the time of the APHA meeting, asserted Achmat, and he charged that the announcement was an attempt to buy the silence of poor countries at a time when the looming war in Iraq was receiving heavy international criticism.

"All of you here know that just like the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that $15 billion is a lie," he said,

Bush had originally endorsed an outlay of $3 billion in the first year of the program but later reduced the number to $2 billion. The day after Achmat’s speech, Congressional lawmakers announced a tentative foreign aid bill that, if approved, would provide $2.4 billion for the program in the first year. The bill requires final votes in the House and Senate.

Achmat said that the Bush administration’s support for the "ABC" (Abstinence, Be faithful, or use Condoms if A and B are not practiced) model of AIDS prevention is too simplistic.

"To say to people ‘Be faithful’–without saying that you also have a right and a duty to use a condom–kills them," he said.

Achmat applauded the use of international pressure to bring down the costs of AIDS drugs in South Africa, which were as high as $650 per month when he started Treatment Action Campaign. Now they cost about $18 per month in the public health care sector, he said–a deal that President Bill Clinton helped broker between drug companies and the South African government, Achmat said.

"Let not money be appropriated for war but for peace and for public health," he said.

The Opening General Session took place a little more than a week before Congress approved a Medicare bill that provides coverage for some prescription drugs but also gives private insurance companies a larger role in the federal entitlement program.

Barbara Lee

Lee said, "Instead of creating universal health care, we will be going in precisely the wrong direction: toward rising Medicare costs for seniors, forced entry into HMOs and an enormous gap in prescription drug coverage that will leave millions of seniors still scrambling to pay for medication."

Health care should be a basic human right, not an industry, she asserted.

The APHA issued a statement describing its opposition to the bill on November 18, one week prior to its Congressional approval.

Georges Benjamin

The statement criticized the failure of the bill to ensure guaranteed access to a prescription drug benefit for seniors who already have some pharmaceutical coverage; large gaps in coverage; and the prospect that some seniors may need to choose less expensive private-sector managed care plans in the wake of expected rising Medicare premiums.

The full APHA statement is available at http://www.apha.org/news/press/2003/medicarebill.htm.

Lee also described her reintroduction of a bill that would establish universal health care in the U.S., similar to the National Health System in Britain. H.R. 3080, the United States Universal Health Service Act, would create an entitlement to free health care and supplemental services, with an emphasis on prevention and wellness strategies.

"It is a national embarrassment that the United States is the only industrialized country in the world without health insurance for all," she said.

Lee received one of three APHA Distinguished Public Health Legislator of the Year Awards. Also honored were U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, whose aide accepted the award on her behalf, and Maine Gov. John Elias Baldacci, who also was not in attendance but provided a videotaped acceptance speech.

	Jay Glasser

More than 70 million people go without health insurance for a significant part of two years, he continued. "Imagine speaking to an audience of 70+ million people, saying ‘You do not count in our great nation’," said Glasser.

Poor children are twice as likely to lack health insurance as better-off children, he noted, and the discrepancies do not end there. Health status differs dramatically among groups of Americans.

"APHA’s long-term commitment to eliminating racial and ethnic disparities is something we must renew every day and every year," he said.