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Sign Up and Join Us! |
| To receive our
newsletters, important announcements about
events throughout the state of SC, and to be
able to access our Forums, sign up to be an
online member. |
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| Then take the next
step, and join up as an active member of
the Task Force. Read the
Requirements of Membership and join us at
our next Task Force meeting in Columbia. (see the
Events page for the date
of the upcoming meeting) |
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Our Mission: |
| The South Carolina HIV/AIDS Care Crisis Task Force
is a non-partisan advocacy coalition of individuals,
non-profit organizations, and allies from across South
Carolina committed to improving the response to the
HIV/AIDS epidemic in our state. |
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Our Sponsor: AIDS United |
| The SC HIV/AIDS Care
Crisis Task Force is funded by
AIDS
United. |
AIDS
United supports
more than 400 grassroots organizations
annually that advocate for people living
with or affected by HIV/AIDS and the
organizations that serve them with
special emphasize on communities of
color, women and people living with
HIV/AIDS in the U.S. South. |
aidsunited.org |
AIDS
United’s policy
staff has been instrumental in the
development and implementation of major
public health policies that improve the
quality of life for those living with
HIV/AIDS and ensure evidence based
prevention programs to stop the spread
of new infections. |
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Action Calendar |
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| Visit the
Events page to
review complete information about all current
and upcoming events. |
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Special Community Events: |
| Under the
Affordable Care Act, states have been given the
option to expand their Medicaid programs. Not
only will this expansion bring more jobs to our
state; but thousands of fellow citizens earning
under 138% of the Federal Poverty Level will
have access to health care. |
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| Assisted by AIDS United,
and supported by our partners in "Accept ME SC", the Task Force will be
sponsoring press conferences, partner training classes, and community
panel forums around the state to educate the people in SC about how
expanding the Medicaid program will help our state and our neighbors. |
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| 3/18 |
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Spartanburg |
| 3/19 |
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Rock Hill |
| 3/20 |
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Greenville |
| 3/21 |
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Charleston |
| 4/TBA |
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Florence |
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http://schacctf.org/me4sc |
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Recent Advocacy Events: |
In Feb. 2013,
the Task Force held an Advocacy Day, going to
the State House to talk one-on-one with our
Legislators. We thanked them once again for the
ADAP funding put into the budget last year, and
spoke to them about the necessity of Medicaid
Expansion for SC.
This newest Advocacy Day was a follow-up to our
previous event held last December. |
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At
our last event, we met at the Statehouse in the morning for a special Press Conference,
with our new coalition ("Accept ME SC")
partners,
addressing the issues of the Affordable
Health Care Act and Medicaid Expansion.
Later that evening we hosted a
Community Forum / Panel Discussion.
You can watch the videos from each of those events
on our
YouTube Channel. |
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Come LIKE us on Facebook and stay
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announcements on your wall!
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| Do you use Facebook? Have you LIKED the
SCHACCTF page? If
not, we'd like to share with you just a bit of the posts and information
that you've been missing out since the first of the year. |
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Don't miss out on any more of the important
news information posted on our Facebook page.
Join today, if you haven't already, and LIKE our page
http://facebook.com/schacctf |
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| Christian Norton, a MoveOn.org member, has created an online
petition at signon.org regarding Medicaid Expansion in SC. Below is the
message from Christian Norton, the wording of the petition and a link
you can use to sign on. Please consider signing this petition and then
sharing the link with your friends. |
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Last year, Governor Nikki Haley announced that she would not accept new
federal dollars to expand the state's Medicaid program. If she rejects
these funds, more than 300,000 South Carolinians will be uninsured. We
need to tell Governor Haley to reverse course and accept federal
Medicaid dollars, protecting more than 300,000 South Carolinians who
would benefit.
That's why I created a petition on SignOn.org to Governor Nikki Haley,
which says:
More than 17% of South Carolina residents don't have health insurance,
including many children.
By rejecting Medicaid expansion funds from the federal government, you
are hurting more than 300,000 South Carolinians who would benefit from
it.
Please reverse course and accept the federal Medicaid dollars and help
South Carolinians in need.
Click
here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to
your friends.
Thanks!
–Christian Norton
This petition was created on SignOn.org, the progressive, nonprofit
petition site. SignOn.org is sponsored by MoveOn Civic Action, which is
not responsible for the contents of this or other petitions
posted on the site. |
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ACA, Medicaid Expansion and HIV |
For much of 2012, the Task Force
has been focused on the problem of the ADAP
waiting list. Thankfully, with our Legislators
over-riding the Governor's budget veto, ADAP was
funded by $4 million for the next 4 years.
Now as the elections are about to be over, we
are moving forward with educating ourselves
about the next phase of the Affordable
Healthcare Act which will include Medicaid
Expansion. We need this education so that we can
advocate for HIV positive people living in South
Carolina by educating others - like Legislators
and other State officials in our counties and
cities - who can make positive differences for
our positive loved ones |
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We are using this PDF as our
first Fact Sheet for Medicaid Expansion.
Please download this Fact Sheet, learn some
of the facts, and share this information
with others.
We'll be using this information and more
when, with the Harvard Law School and Robert
Greenwald, the Task Force will be sponsoring
a Press Conference, Capacity Building
Training and Boot Camp on ACA and Medicaid Expansion, and
Community Forum on December 11th. |
Right-click and "Save As" to save as a
PDF
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Note of Change: the Capacity
Building Training
is now an Invitation-only Event for Partners | Tuesday morning, December 11, 2012,
will start off with a Press Conference in the SC
State House Rotunda at 10:00am.
A program of Capacity
Building Training and Boot Camp on ACA and Medicaid
Expansion will follow to educate our Partner Advocates on
how to initiate legislative and governmental
conversations at the State and Local levels.
Later that evening from 6:00pm to 8:00pm, a
Community Forum will be held in the USC School of
Law auditorium with a lecture and Question & Answer
segment to discuss these issues with the
community-at-large. |
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Charles Stephens, from AIDS
United, gave us this information lecture
at our October
meeting. |
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Michael Bivens, our
Communications Chair, reviewed these
Medicaid Expansion at our November meeting. |
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| As more educational materials
and talking point fact sheets are created, we'll
keep updating this section to keep everyone in
the Task Force up to date! |
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PBS - "Endgame: AIDS in Black America" |
| Today, African-Americans represent half of
all new HIV/AIDS cases in the United States. In
the new documentary, PBS Frontline "Endgame:
AIDS in Black America" examines how HIV has
impacted Black Americans. Our very own Dr. Bambi
Gaddist speaks out on this important issue in
our state. (In 2008, 78% of all new HIV
infections were African-Americans, and 48% of
all new infections came via heterosexual
contact.) |
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Take some time to watch this informative
documentary and
explore the information on the
PBS website. |
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Keep The Promise - March on
Washington July 22 |
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The "Keep
the Promise" March and Rally will bring together
thousands of AIDS advocates (including hundreds
from South Carolina!) in the heart of
Washington, DC prior to the opening of the 2012
International AIDS Conference with the aim of
reminding world leaders and policy makers that
the AIDS epidemic remains a global threat to
public health.
The "Keep the Promise" March seeks to refocus
public attention on the lack of access to HIV
testing, treatment and prevention; wavering
political commitment to funding the global AIDS
response and excessive AIDS drug pricing by
pharmaceutical companies. While recent
scientific discoveries show that treatment as
prevention has the potential to one day end the
AIDS epidemic, political will and financial
resources must go hand-in-hand with science to
make this vision a reality. |
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| One small church in Columbia, SC
- St. Luke’s Episcopal Church - hosted a dinner
and a special showing of SCETV’s show “HIV/AIDS and Faith.”
(see below), followed by a discussion. The members
were so motivated to help raise awareness about
HIV/AIDS that they reserved
two buses to take church members, neighbors and
friends to the "Keep the Promise" March
on Washington this summer. |
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| The rally and march will be held
on Sunday, July 22, 2012. Visit
www.keepthepromise2012.org for rally and march
details or contact SCHACCTF member Elizabeth McLendon at
(803) 622-1684 or
elizabeth.mclendon@keepthepromise2012.org. |
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SC ETV - "HIV, AIDS
and Faith" |
| Although many
people may think AIDS was a problem that peaked
in the 1990s and has largely gone away, it is
still a great problem in SC. The capital itself,
Columbia, S.C., has the sixth largest HIV
population in the country while HIV/AIDS costs
the South Carolina workforce more than six
billion dollars each year. |
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In this excellent documentary
for SC ETV, Elaine Cooper, Amy Shumaker, Steve
Folks, Xavier Blake, and Lynn Cornfoot tell the
story of HIV in South Carolina in a personal
style, focusing on people in the state - young
and old - who are living with the disease. Many
are receiving assistance from faith-based
initiatives in local churches. These churches
have bravely carried on the fight, despite
"Project Faith" having been defunded by the
South Carolina state legislature
View this video at the ETV
website
http://www.scetv.org/index.php/carolina_stories/show/hiv_aids_and_faith/
and pass the link along to others to spread this
important information about HIV in SC. |
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Say Thanks! |
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For many years, we
have advocated to our Legislators to properly
fund ADAP (AIDS Drug Assistance Program), and it
seems that we have been heard. In the 2011
budget, our Legislators passed a recurring $3
million budget for ADAP. While this doesn't
cover the entire need, for four years this
amount is guaranteed to be in the budget
automatically. Another $1 million was also
awarded in this budget, pushing the total to $4
million for ADAP. |
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| Not only as common courtesy, but
as in the old adage of winning more with honey
than vinegar, after many years of complaining
about inadequate funding, it's only appropriate
that we thank key Legislators who helped put
this recurring money into the budget. |
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Please take a few moments to
send "Thank You" cards to your Legislators. Make sure to write a
short note inside thanking them for their
support and the votes for the recurring money
for ADAP.
Don't forget to send us an email (services@schacctf.org)
letting us know who you contacted! |
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