Lowry Offers Reprieve For Aids Program Pledges Money To Temporarily Save Threatened State Drug Program

Gov. Mike Lowry pledged Thursday to find the money to temporarily save a program that helps buy expensive medication for low-income people infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

But health advisers and advocates warned that state leaders soon will have to make a tougher, long-term policy decision that involves morality and science, as well as money.

“Concern is very, very high. Access to these medications in many cases is a life-and-death matter,” said state Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle.

Last week, the state Health Department cut off enrollment in the prescription program, citing the high cost of four new medications and a 75 percent increase in participation. Agency officials said the $646,000 program - once thought to be operating with a large surplus - will be out of money by the end of the year.

Lowry said his emergency fund has about $850,000, which alone would not solve the problem, but might provide enough to preserve the program until January when the Legislature can consider a permanent solution.

“If we can get a stopgap solution, it will buy us a little time and we can continue serving the population,” the governor told reporters during a news conference on an unrelated issue.

Meanwhile, health care experts meeting in Seatac began wrestling with the broader policy issues, and were immediately concerned about what they were hearing from the Health Department.

Dr. Robert Wood, director of the King County AIDS Control Program, told the state Health Care Policy Board that a new class of medicines called “protease inhibitors” appears to stop the virus from reproducing inside victims’ bodies. That, he said, also could help prevent the disease from spreading.

However, if a patient stops taking the medicine, the virus can mutate into a drug-resistant strain. That’s particularly bad news in light of the optimism that emerged from a recent AIDS conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Dr. George Schneider of the policy board likened that scenario to creating “a monster.”

As a result, state officials are wrestling with the question of whether to help HIV-AIDS patients buy the new drugs, even though the prescription program is on course to run out of money this fall or winter.

“People see the lifeboat, and there isn’t room,” Mariella Cummings, AIDS director for the state Health Department, told the policy board, which advises the governor and the Legislature on health-care issues.

“I don’t know how to equate the value of a human life,” Schneider said.

Until recently, the HIV-AIDS prescription drug program appeared to have more money than it needed. In fact, state lawmakers cut the program’s funding.

But disaster struck in the past few weeks.

Cummings said new figures show that client enrollment has increased from 475 to 840 since January. Meanwhile, the program’s costs have jumped from an average of $53,000 a month in 1995 to $143,800 in June.

Asked how much money it would take to pay for the new drugs, Cummings said the department should have estimates next week.

Several other states also are struggling with the high cost of the new medications - one of which costs $14,000 a year for one person.

In response to the pattern of rising costs nationwide, Congress approved $52 million in supplemental funding in April.

But Cummings said Washington state’s share of $667,000 won’t be enough to save the program, noting that less than 50 of its 840 clients could be served.

President Clinton announced Wednesday that he would increase his fiscal 1997 request for state AIDS drug assistance programs by $65 million, for a total of $117 million. The funds must be approved by Congress.

Lowry said a long-term solution should include help from the insurance industry, the federal and state governments and the pharmaceutical industry.