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Obama Ends U.S. Travel Ban On Visitors, Immigrants With HIV-AIDS
October 30, 2009 1:26 PM
ABC News' Rachel Martin reports:
Starting Monday, foreigners with HIV-AIDS will be able to travel or immigrate to the United States without having to get a waiver from the Department of Homeland Security.
Today President Obama eliminated a travel ban that had been in place since 1993, forbidding people with HIV-AIDS from travelling to the US. “If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it,” the President said today.
He tipped his hat to his predecessor for starting the process. “Congress and President Bush began this process last year, and they ought to be commended for it. We are finishing the job. It's a step that will encourage people to get tested and get treatment, it's a step that will keep families together, and it's a step that will save lives.”
The President announced the repeal of the ban in a ceremony marking the fourth re-authorization of the Ryan White CARE Act, legislation that provides treatment for low-income HIV/AIDS victims. The legislation was named after the Indiana teenager who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion in 1984. White was suspended from school because of his disease and became the national poster child for a disease that until then, had been coined a “gay affliction.”
“It has been nearly three decades since this virus first became known,” Obama said. “But for years, we refused to recognize it for what it was. It was coined a ‘gay disease.’ Those who had it were viewed with suspicion. There was a sense among some that people afflicted by AIDS somehow deserved their fate and that it was acceptable for our nation to look the other way.”
The President said the CARE Act is a crucial tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS. “It helps communities that are most severely affected by this epidemic and often least served by our health care system, including minority communities, the LGBT community, rural communities, and the homeless. It's often the only option for the uninsured and the underinsured. And it provides life-saving medical services to more than half a million Americans every year, in every corner of the country.”
But the President cited statistics that illustrate the pernicious effect of a disease that while less devastating than in decades past, still afflicts a large portion of the US population. “This is a battle that’s far from over and it’s a battle that all of us need to do our part to join….AIDS may no longer be the leading killer of Americans ages 25 to 44, as it once was. But there are still 1.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States, and more than 56,000 new infections occur every single year.”
In addition, the President stated the following stats:
*Gay men make up 2 or 3 percent of the general population, but more than half of all new cases.
*African Americans make up roughly half of all new cases.
*Nearly all new cases now occur in the southern part of the U.S.
*Seven percent of Washington D.C.’s residents between the ages of 40 and 49 live with HIV/AIDS
After Ryan White died in 1990, the act named in his honor was passed later that same year. White’s mother Jeanne White Ginder was present at the signing ceremony today. “We can't give Ryan White back to Jeanne, back to his mom,” the President said.
“But what we can do -- what the legislation that I'm about to sign has done for nearly 20 years -- is honor the courage that he and his family showed. What we can do is to take more action and educate more people. What we can do is keep fighting each and every day until we eliminate this disease from the face of the Earth.”
October 30, 2009 in Current Affairs, Obama, Barack, Travel, White House | Permalink | Share | User Comments (86)
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Thank you Pres Obama. I just hope that other developed economies would take a cue from you and stop the stigma. For thpose Americans who think there is only one disease that kills, remember H1N1? REMEMBER THE NUMBER OF GUNS ON YOUR STREETS? Thanks Pres Obama
Posted by: Colonel Johns | Nov 11, 2009 9:17:31 AM
We need a cure for idiotic comments !
I hear so much racism in these comments.
We are fed up, , we are fed up, with the rent being so expensive!
we are fed up with the high cost of Schools, we are fed up with this freaking war! we are fed up to spend 60 BILLIONS a month in Iraq ...
want more...
Leave the HIV people alone, they are 3% of the population...
We need so mobility on the social letter///
Let's get together, no hate one another ..
be more compassionate !
be human. UNITE !!!
Posted by: george | Nov 5, 2009 6:36:15 PM
this people here suck!
Posted by: george | Nov 5, 2009 6:30:41 PM
Jason...Would you say the same thing in regard to the Europeans who introduced disease to American Native Indians when they came over to the Americas...Perhaps advising Native Americans Just don't have contact with the immigrants,(Europeans.) To suggest abstaining from relations with an immigrant, probably thousands, to avoid a particular disease is short sighted and a DUH moment...
Posted by: Parallex View | Nov 2, 2009 12:22:30 PM
DUH.....
Posted by: Parallex View | Nov 2, 2009 12:07:40 PM
I am completely taken aback by the amount of ignorance that I have seen posted here! The legislation is not made with any intention of inviting in disease! Most people that travel or visit the US who are Hiv positive will be provided for by their own country already. Almost all the industrialized countries provide for this already. They don't need our gov. money. And, to anyone commenting on it bringing widespread disease to our country needs to get a clue. Tell ya what, I got an answer for those bigots too. Don't have sex with an immigrant! Problem Solved!!
Posted by: Jason | Nov 1, 2009 6:08:11 PM
WE NEED THESE HIV/AIDS PERSONS TO STAY WHERE THEY ARE. IF ANYONE VOTES FOR THIS MAN AGAIN THEY SHOULD HAVE THEIR HEADS EXAMINED. OUR MEDICAL SYSTEM IS OVERLOADED WITH FREE-LOADING/NON TAX PAYING ILLEGALS NOW AND MEDICAL COSTS ARE SOARING FOR US SENIORS.THIS PRESIDENT IS A MENACE TO OUR HEALTH AND WELFARE AND THE HEALTH OF OUR CHILDREN.
Posted by: CONNIE CARROLL | Nov 1, 2009 5:51:51 PM
We are going to be getting a huge new influx of HIV/AIDS positive 'visitors" who will never leave the country. They will stay for the free medical treatment at tax payer expense. Like the illegal immigration problem the gov. created & refuses to address, this will become an enormous burden on our country.
This is not about compassion or party affiliation, this is about common sense and the safety of the American public.
Posted by: A. Lincoln | Oct 31, 2009 11:25:14 PM
I'm normally an Obama fan but I'll be second guessing from this day forward does anyone know a way which I can help stop this?
Posted by: JJ | Oct 31, 2009 12:14:58 PM
People already come to live in this country with diseases that do not get checked for, like diabetes, cholesterol, heart problems and others. Also, people with many other maladies already come to the country but they don't declare it, and making HIV a target disease is not going to stop it's spread. If you read correctly, it was President Bush (one good thing he did) that started this process, so if you want to blame anyone, blame him.
Posted by: Daniel D P | Oct 31, 2009 12:01:33 PM
Denny, why are you posting such an exaggerated if not blatant lie? But tell you what, if your octogenarian parents are under such duress why don't you pitch in and help them? Also if they're company went under like you claim why should that matter in a free market economy like the United States? Face it, the market is the market and only the fittest survive - that's capitalism; that's a Republican cornerstone. Deal with it.
Posted by: RonaldReaganWasSenile | Oct 31, 2009 9:56:43 AM
My 80 year old parents are losing their supplemental medical insurance because the employer they retired under with the supplemental plan went under. Medicare will be reduced under the new plan being proposed by the democrats, and now President Obama opens wide the emergency room doors of American hospitals to all HIV/Aids patients entering her on visitor's visas. Simply unbelievable leadership.
Posted by: Denny | Oct 31, 2009 9:52:45 AM
Was the additional cost to treat these patients in our new public health care system factored into the bottom line that Pelosi and Reid calculated, because it will be significant ... a huge increase in the bottom line costs. You really need to govern with your head and your heart today vs. one or the other. This is a compassionate but incredibly "not well thought out or through" decision by Obama that I wish he had not made until our economy was on surer ground again. Bad timing, horrible decision with health legislation pending and the bottom lines costs for this decision not even considered. It just makes him and his team look like incredibly shortsighted and inept leadership.
Posted by: Rob | Oct 31, 2009 9:16:48 AM
And why do Democrats think everything should be for FREE??? Nothing is free, someone else is paying for it for you!!! Insurance companies are a business, choose your plan and get your priorities in order, life is all about money and what you can afford!!! Park the expensive car, make a better decision than you did with your Vote! Taxpayers backs are broken carrying the burden of democrats entitlement programs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: HH | Oct 31, 2009 9:02:17 AM
I hope the people who are so opposed to this new legislation are not the same ones who are opposed to affordable, universal health care. If a deadly virus/bacteria that is a contagion comes into our country, it will not be choosy whom it attacks. Are you suggesting that a person's life is only as valuable as what he can buy? An attitude like this is such an oxymoron and not at all compatible with the Christian philosophy that I understand.
Posted by: Hope | Oct 31, 2009 8:43:00 AM
We don't need more aids victims here in order to work for a cure. Its here and its a horrible disease and I am sure all the people who are posting above would also like to see it cured. Please stop saying the posters don't have compassion...that is not the case nor point. We all feel for anyone who is fighting for their lives thats what makes us human. But what we don't need is to add more lives to the list of the already infected. Its common sense, not compassion, that we are dealing with here.
Posted by: Pam | Oct 31, 2009 7:42:24 AM
THIS MORON WILL BE A ONE TERM PRESIDENT. AND MOST OF CONGRESS WILL BE GONE ALSO..
Posted by: fedd up | Oct 31, 2009 7:28:34 AM
Quite right.
"If Obama was really serious about combating hiv/aids, he would lift the fda bans on alternative treatments like ozone therapy. He's not accomplishing anything here."
Obviously he has another agenda.
Posted by: jonny | Oct 31, 2009 7:26:12 AM
If Obama was really serious about combating hiv/aids, he would lift the fda bans on alternative treatments like ozone therapy. He's not accomplishing anything here.
Posted by: johndoe | Oct 31, 2009 7:19:16 AM
You've got to be kidding me!!!! How can you (in one breath) complain about health care costs and in the next invite more disease into the mix. Our children will have enough problems to face here in the coming years lets not add to it. Obama needs to stop doing things to make himself look good in the eye of compassion and take the responsibility of being a president (not a celebrity) seriously.
Posted by: Pam | Oct 31, 2009 7:13:55 AM
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