Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
AIDS Activist Brings Initiatives On Condoms, Drug Prices To Calif. Ballot
As an AIDS activist 30 years ago, Michael Weinstein helped defeat an inflammatory ballot measure that could have quarantined Californians with the disease. Today, Weinstein has turned to the ballot to advance his own controversial vision for public health. President of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has clinics around the world, Weinstein is the architect of two initiatives Californians will vote on in November: Proposition 60, which would require actors in adult films to use condoms, and Proposition 61, which would cap the price state health programs pay for prescription drugs. (Rosenhall, 7/13)
Nearly one in 10 Americans living with HIV live in New York, where an ambitious plan aims to cut new infections and HIV-related deaths. But it has serious challenges, including keeping people on their meds, and stopping the spread among IV drug users. (Brangham, 7/13)
In other California ballot measure news聽鈥
California voters will be asked to weigh in this November on a hospital financing measure so politically and financially complicated that they might be tempted to avoid it altogether. The initiative, Proposition 52, would make permanent the 鈥淗ospital Quality Assurance Fee,鈥 which the state collects from private hospitals to bring in additional federal dollars for Medi-Cal, California鈥檚 version of the federal Medicaid health care program for the poor. The federal government matches money that California puts up to fund Medi-Cal services. (Bartolone, 7/13)