The House Appropriations Committee has released its proposed Fiscal Year 2027 funding bill for the Department of Health and Human Services, calling for over $1 billion in cuts to domestic HIV prevention and treatment programs.
Under the proposal, nearly all U.S. Centers of Disease Control HIV prevention activities would be eliminated, preserving only the $220 million out of the total $800 million for the Ending the HIV Epidemic prevention component. The prevention component covers a limited set of regions nationwide.
The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which funds care for low-income and uninsured people living with HIV, would be cut by 8.75 percent, or $225 million. That reduction includes the Ending the HIV Epidemic care and treatment component, currently funded at $165 million. The Minority AIDS Initiative would also be cut by $36 million, reducing it to $20 million.
The proposed cuts come as state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs, which are funded through Part B of Ryan White, are already implementing waitlists for antiretroviral medications. CDC data released earlier this year found that only 69 percent of people living with HIV are virally suppressed. The HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute has warned that further reductions to Ryan White will worsen that figure, particularly as Medicaid work requirements take effect and more people lose coverage.
Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, said the bill would leave the country without the infrastructure to monitor or respond to the epidemic. “We can’t imagine a country that is unable to conduct basic surveillance of a serious infectious disease, educate and test people, and link them to appropriate treatment or prevention, including PrEP,” Schmid said. “That is what would happen if the House Republican bill were to pass.” Schmid called the cuts “reckless” and said they would compound ongoing instability in state and local HIV prevention programs.
