NJ will help pay for threatened patients' AIDS meds

In a rare about-face, the Christie administration announced Thursday that it would help pay for AIDS medications for nearly 1,000 New Jersey residents who were expecting to lose their coverage through a state program Aug. 1.

Under Christie's first budget, the state had tightened the income requirements for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program to save an estimated $7.4 million. The allowable income for assistance was cut from $54,150 annually to $32,490 for a single person with no children. At the same time, the state increased appropriations for the program from $9.8 million to $17.2 million in anticipation of increased enrollment and rising pharmaceutical costs.

On Thursday, the state announced that those who would have lost coverage will be enrolled immediately in a new program specifically for residents at higher income levels, between 300 and 500 percent of the federal poverty level. New enrollment for patients who fall in the income guidelines and meet other program requirements also will be permitted, said Donna Leusner, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Senior Services.

Health and Senior Services Commissioner Poonam Alaigh said the state learned recently that it would receive $5 million more in rebates from pharmaceutical companies than previously expected. That money, along with additional federal AIDS funds, will allow the department to enroll those whose coverage would have been dropped in a new program, Temporary AIDS Supplemental Rebate and Federal Relief Program.

"The department faced extremely difficult budget choices and worked continuously to explore every possible option to reverse this reduction and to maintain access," Alaigh said.

One lawmaker who has been working to restore coverage said it never should have been jeopardized because the "new" funding has been known about for weeks.

Sen. Joseph Vitale (D., Middlesex) said he has been trying to tell the Department of Health and Senior Services for weeks that additional monies would be coming in and that a reduction in coverage would not be necessary.

"What's discouraging is that they don't pay attention," Vitale said. "The governor is nowhere on health care in this state. We're taking giant steps backward."

"I'm frustrated to hear that he creates a crisis and then he solves a crisis," he added.

Leusner said state officials did not learn until "several weeks after the budget was adopted" that New Jersey would receive sufficient funding in rebates to create the new program.

At an unrelated news conference Thursday, Christie accused Vitale of "playing politics" on the issue.

"I've been working on this for a while with the pharmaceutical industry," Christie said. "And if Senator Vitale would have had the courtesy to pick up the phone and call, I would have been able to save the paper he wrote that letter on."

Advocates for HIV and AIDS patients welcomed the change of heart, although some also urged the state to make a firm commitment to covering the medications on a longer-term basis and also to cover the costs of non-AIDS medications.

Dr. David Condoluci, who heads Garden State Infectious Disease Associates in Voorhees, said his staff had been scrambling for several weeks to try to help some of its 1,600 AIDS and HIV patients who expected to lose their coverage.

"This was the compromise that we were looking for to begin with so nobody had to go without their HIV meds," Condoluci said. "That's what we were hoping for."

"This is welcome news for those 957 clients, and we applaud the governor's actions," said Kathy Ahearn-O'Brien, executive director of Hyacinth AIDS Foundation in New Brunswick. "However, serious questions still remain about the long-term viability of the program. Lifesaving mediations should not be seen as a negotiable budget line item."

Leusner said the state found the funds this year, but future coverage had not been determined because "the department's budget process is year to year."

AIDS and HIV medications can cost patients $22,000 a year without assistance; even with health insurance, patients can pay hundreds of dollars a month in co-payments.

In 2009, 7,645 residents, most without health insurance, were enrolled in the state AIDS Drug Assistance Program.