AIDS Treatment and the Ryan White Care Act

There were some last fall who questioned Hillary Clinton's commitment to the African American community with respect to AIDS treatment, suggesting that when she called out the inherent racism in the disparity between treatment of white women and black women for the disease she was simply pandering. But in those 30 second answers, she tried hard to impress upon people her interest in the federal government's role in battling the epidemic which disproportionately affects her state.

In 2006, Hillary Clinton demonstrated tremendous political courage in opening herself up to virulent and specious attacks for being the sole member of the Senate Health Committee to, in protest, vote against the proposed reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act of 1990 which would have further thinned the amount of funding coverage around the country and hurt residents in larger states the most. She went to the floor of the Senate to parry the inevitable attacks from numerous sides: from senators in rural states, to interest groups seeking high profile-high publicity disputes in order to set the record straight about the Bush Administration's misguided AIDS budgeting priorities to which she was opposed:

[W]e are having a debate now over a shrinking pot of funding at a time when I absolutely agree, more and more states have greater and greater needs. But to argue about the formula instead of arguing about the program and what it needs to be funded appropriately seems like a diversion to me. We're having a formula fight when we should be focused on fixing our strategy and strengthening our funding to meet the growing challenge and crisis of HIV/AIDS in America. That is the real debate we should be having on the floor of the Senate. [... L]et's put the money where our mouths are. Let's put more money into this program so we're not picking between a poor African-American woman in New York City and a poor African-American woman in Alabama.

She knew about the problems with respect to AIDS in the African-American community long before she ever graced the stage at the PBS forum. She has been passionate about the issue: so much so that she took a politically dangerous stance in order to air her dismay at the set of false choices with which she was faced: either approve Bush's continual drain of support for poor people afflicted with HIV/AIDS, or delay a bill and fight for a greater apportionment.

Delivering on Children's Health Issues for Decades

In 1998, the NYTimes reported that the FDA, which was more trusted under the Clinton Administration, would force Pharmaceutical companies to do rigorous testing on drugs they intended to market for use on children over the objection of the drug lobby. The paper recognized Hillary's role in the process, for which she had advocated publicly and in private with her husband as children had become increasingly diagnosed with illnesses such as ADD/ADHD and clinical depression.

Much to the chagrin of her detractors on the Huffington Post, Hillary Clinton did indeed use her influence as First Lady to get the State Children's Health Insurance Program passed covering more than 6 million children, 7000+ children health care in New Hampshire, and over 300,000 children in Illinois.

Clinton is on solid ground saying that she helped to create SCHIP.

Much of the credit for SCHIP usually goes to Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who shepherded the legislation through a Republican-controlled Congress. But the Clinton campaign has said previously that she used her influence behind the scenes to push for SCHIP, and there is evidence to support that.

Soon after the legislation passed, the New York Times reported, "Participants in the campaign for the health bill both on and off Capitol Hill said the first lady had played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in lining up White House support."

Ted Kennedy told AP: "'The children's health program wouldn't be in existence today if we didn't have Hillary pushing for it from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.'"

Hillary Clinton worked as First Lady to create the Childhood Immunization Initiative which streamlined child vaccines and improved access for poor children to immunological defense against measles. mumps, diphtheria and rubella.

Leadership on Addiction and Substance Abuse issues

Many of us may remember an embarrassing story about America that went around the world in early 2003 entitled "Americans Drunker and Fatter than Ever." (The NYTimes' version is much more conservatively worded.)

While, all of the candidates have made their commitment to addressing the obesity problem, Hillary Clinton has taken specific steps as a senator to address substance abuse as a cog in the her vision of the federal government's expanded role in addressing Mental Health issues. As First Lady, she had also pushed she co-launched with Donna Shalala a p3-initiative with the National Institute of Mental Health to help inform parents of the specific options and dangers facing children as social anxiety and depression diagnoses in children were beginning to skyrocket.

[As a measure of irony for this post, I think I should point out that Rev. Jesse Jackson is quoted as saying in an article I consulted on Hillary during the 1996 Democratic Convention that personal attacks on Hillary are: "beneath the dignity of American citizens." Someone may need to forward his son the memo.]

Hillary Clinton recognizes that as many as 23 million Americans suffer from alcoholism and other substance abuse. In 2005, she reached across the aisle to act as the lead Democratic cosponsor for the HEART (Help Expand Access to Recovery and Treatment) Act of 2005. It specifically would bar health insurance companies from placing restrictions on treatment of substance abuse.

Partner of Leading Policy Analysts, Long-time Advocate for a Federal Cancer Strategy

Hillary Clinton helped to create the National Action Plan on Breast Cancer with Donna Shalala in an ongoing project bridging from 1995 to 2000. Addressing the WHO's forum on Women's Health in Beijing, Clinton served as honorary chair and highlighted the US' pro-women priorities under the Clinton Administration:

* The National Action Plan on Breast Cancer - a public, private partnership working with all agencies of government, the media, scientific organizations, advocacy groups and industry to advance breast health and eradicate breast cancer as a threat to the lives of American women.

• An Expansion of the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program -- we hope will ensure that women who need regular screening and detection services have access to them, and that those services meet quality standards.
  
• The inclusion of women in clinical trials for research and testing of drugs or other interventions that probe specific differences between men and women in patterns of disease and reactions to therapy.
  
• The specific health needs of older women will be addressed through educational campaigns about osteoporosis, cancer and other diseases. [...]

According to Kaiser Permanente, Hillary Clinton endorsed and helped kickstart a federal initiative to raise money for breast cancer awareness and research as First Lady. The program was an immediate success, raising $11 million (pg 96).

Hillary Clinton met with the NBCC to help expand Medicare's purview and co-launched the Medicare Mammography Plan.

If any of us were to walk up to Hillary Clinton and ask an esoteric health policy question, chances are she'd be able to give a speech about it for an hour. Perhaps endemic of the poisonous atmosphere surrounding the Democratic primary race, some were quick to scoff at Bill Clinton's characterization of his wife as a world-class genius. But I just want to cap off this post with a piece of imagery that, I think, demonstrates Hillary's passion on Health issues (not even mentioning Universal Health Care).

I'll never forget a brief discussion she had with a passerby of her campaign on CSPAN's coverage of a campaign stop she made at an Iowa diner. She was doing a typical campaign schmooze, shaking hands "I hope you'll consider giving me your support," when she asked a man in a crowd what he did for a living. He was a dentist, he said. The introduction of topic of dentistry caused her to light up immediately and engage him on a rather wonkish discussion about the importance of oral health. She announced to the crowd that there is indeed a medical link between dental health and heart disease, that his line of work was important beyond just cosmetics. A minute later, their discussion came to a close and her entourage of staffers and secret service swept her away to who-knows-where-- but it was more than just your typical "gee, that's nice." This is a woman who knows her facts.