Experts React To White House FY 2020 Budget Request Calling For Increase In Domestic HIV Funding, Cuts To Bilateral HIV Spending

NBC News: Trump’s budget adds domestic HIV funding while slashing global outlays
“The Trump administration Monday unveiled its 2020 budget proposal, which contains a $291 million request to fund the president’s ‘Ending the HIV Epidemic’ plan. … The $140 million allotted for the CDC is an 18 percent increase over what it received last year, according to Jen Kates, vice president [and director] of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. ‘That’s a pretty significant jump,’ she added. … [But s]he said proposed cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund, which fund treatment and prevention in poor countries, could work against the most well-intentioned domestic efforts to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic…” (Fitzsimons, 3/12).

New York Times: Trump Lauded Farmers, Medicare and AIDS Programs. Then Came His Budget Knife.
“…Mr. Trump has promised that his administration will help [eliminate] AIDS over the next 10 years. … Mr. Trump’s budget would provide $291 million to the Department of Health and Human Services to defeat the disease, but funding would shrink for global programs trying to do the same thing. … ‘Congress will forget this budget by Friday, but the signal it sends to the world’s poorest will be remembered,’ Tom Hart, the North America executive director for the [ONE] campaign, said in a statement. ‘We can’t end the AIDS crisis by cutting programs proven to fight this disease’…” (Rogers, 3/12).

The Telegraph: America first: Trump boosts domestic spending on HIV but slashes help for those overseas
“…The budget also unveiled a reduced U.S. contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which this year is looking for its next three-year tranche of funding. The U.S. will [pledge] $3.3bn between 2020 and 2023, a reduction on its previous [pledge] of $4.3bn. In a statement, the Global Fund said: “The United States is the leading supporter of the Global Fund, and we are confident that the U.S. Congress will continue the strong funding that is urgently needed to improve global health security by ending epidemics. Various proposals are being considered and we look forward to final budget decisions taken by Congress in the coming months’…” (Gulland, 3/12).

Washington Post: Trump budget calls for $291 million to fund HIV initiative
“…On PEPFAR, [the White House FY20 budget request] would provide $3.35 billion for bilateral efforts at the State Department and [eliminate funding at] the U.S. Agency for International Development, about [29] percent below fiscal 2019 levels. On the Global Fund, the budget proposes $958.4 million, which is 29 percent below the fiscal 2019 level. ‘It’s hard to square (the [domestic] HIV initiative) with these significant cuts,’ Kates said, referring to Trump’s promise in his State of the Union speech to ‘defeat AIDS in America and beyond’…” (Sun, 3/11).

The KFF Daily Global Health Policy Report summarized news and information on global health policy from hundreds of sources, from May 2009 through December 2020. All summaries are archived and available via search.

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