Aids Patient Pleads For Funds $700,000 Needed For Program That Pays Drug Costs For Needy

A plastic baggy full of pills is the only thing that separates Allie from death.

Thrusting the sack of white and pink capsules into the air, the Sandpoint wife and mother who has AIDS pleaded Wednesday for lawmakers to fund a program that pays drug costs for patients not eligible for Medicaid.

“This is the only thing between me and being alive,” Allie said, clenching the bag with her shaky hands.

But Allie and other uninsured or underinsured AIDS patients risk losing their lifelines, if Idaho doesn’t contribute money to the federal AIDS Drug Assistance Program.

An expected drop in federal money and cutbacks in charitable donations from drug companies forced the state Department of Health and Welfare to ask lawmakers for $700,000 to maintain the program. The request wasn’t in Gov. Phil Batt’s budget.

Lori Lochelt, the North Idaho AIDS Coalition coordinator, is lobbying lawmakers this week to find the money. Idaho will save money, if it helps to fund the program, Lochelt said.

An average AIDS patient spends about $10,000 a year on medication that prevents infections, hospitalization and job loss. Just one hospital stay can total the same amount, Lochelt said.

Allie, who used only her first name, isn’t able to work. But the medication allows her to function as a mother and wife.

“My husband can stay employed because I can take care of myself,” she said.

After lobbying the House Health and Welfare Committee, Allie and Lochelt met with Sen. Clyde Boatright, R-Rathdrum.

Boatright commented that AIDS deaths in the United States have dropped 44 percent in the first half of 1997 compared with the same period in 1996.

Lochelt said medications have helped reduce deaths.

She asked Boatright to urge his colleagues in the budget committee to approve the $700,000 request.

“I’m really, really hoping someone is going to make an argument,” Lochelt said.

Lochelt isn’t alone in her push.

There are 380 Idahoans who are HIV positive. Fourteen are on the drug assistance waiting list. And Allie knows she can’t pay for the 100 pills she takes each week.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “I have a family I have to take care of.”

, DataTimes