AHF Files Suit Against California

AIDS Healthcare Foundation filed suit against the state of California yesterday, accusing the state of ignoring California law and refusing to provide care for HIV/AIDS patients. You may recall that AHF recently sued Pfizer, claiming that the pharmaceutical giant was promoting unsafe sex via its Viagra advertising. In the latest suit, AHF says that California is being deliberately slow to implement a 2002 law requiring that the state extend Medicaid coverage to HIV+ non-disabled patients statewide. AHF claims that California has failed to extend Medi-Cal coverage to a single new patient covered by the 2002 bill.

The AHF's president, the controversial Michael Weinstein, says, "At the time of its initial passage, I noted that the bill was the most important piece of AIDS legislation in California in a decade. It does absolutely no good to have such visionary legislation if state bureaucrats are unable or unwilling implement it, so we are filing this action to compel California to comply with the law." The AHF suit calls for California to immediately comply with its own legislation and for the court to find that the state has violated the law.

I thought that the AHF was way off-base in its lawsuit against Pfizer, but this latest action is well founded. I'll follow-up here as the case progresses.