Currents

Pro Bono Publico

Like almost all AIDS service organizations, AIDSLaw depends on a host of volunteers who donate their time and skills to assist in ALL's mission to the HIV and AIDS community. Once a year, we try to say thank you to these special people and let the community at large know about their good works.

On June 16, ALL hosted the Pro Bono Publico Awards which are given to people who have helped ALL and members of the affected community. In addition AIDSLaw awarded for the third time the Teri Estrada Memorial Award (named for an ALL staff attorney who died from the virus in 1994) to honor an outstanding individual who is committed to improving the lives of people living with HIV and AIDS.

The event was held at the Hanson Gallery in New Orleans and was attended by more than 100 people. Master of Ceremonies David Tyree presented the awards, which were designed by Studio Inferno, to the four Pro Bono recipients: Eric Hess, a former ALL board chair who heads an advertising agency in New Orleans; Bob McKnight, a former board officer who practices law in New Orleans; Geoff Murphy, AIDSLaw's first staff attorney, now in private practice in New Orleans; and Deidre Peterson, a solo practitioner in New Orleans. The Teri Estrada Award was presented to Dr. Milton Seiler, an oncologist with an extensive HIV/AIDS practice in New Orleans.

Besides providing an opportunity to recognize these wonderful people, the ceremony was great fun. Dr. David G. Wood tickled the keys for an appreciative audience, and James Andrews put on a splendid jazz performance. There was also a silent auction with man interesting items, including an Edward Povey lithograph donated by Hanson Gallery, a vintage ring from Katz Antiques, an oil painting by Ricky Lemann, and a photograph by Wallace Merritt.

The evening was a great success, thanks to AIDSLaw's many friends and supporters. In addition to David Tyree, David Woods, and James Andrews, AIDSLaw wants to thank: Mitchell Gaudet and Studio Inferno; Auld Time Piano and Organ; Angela King, Scott Hanson and Hanson Gallery; Bobby Revere and the Bourbon Pub/Parade Disco; Jerry Harris Catering; Encore Catering; Perrier Party Rentals; Hibernia National Bank; People's Home Health Care & Hospice; Delta Region AIDS ETC; Tommy's Flowers; bartenders Matt Giglio and Scott Stringer; Dr. David Martin who took pictures of the event; Hess Marketing; and all the generous people who donated items for the silent auction.

Return to the Table of Contents

Major Gifts Campaign

We want to thank the following people for their generous contributions to our first major gifts campaign. As most of you know, it is our goal at AIDSLaw to raise a sufficient amount of discretionary funding to allow us to hire an additional attorney. The new staff member would not be constrained by our current grant guidelines and would be better able to pursue many of the newly emerging issues surrounding HIV/AIDS. We at AIDSLaw are grateful to you for your generosity and we are thankful to consider each of you listed below as a friend to AIDSLaw.

Return to the Table of Contents

FYI From the Front Office
by Jimmy Fahrenholz

As I write this column, I am looking out of my office window at the changes taking place in our city. Additions to the skyline are quickly overtaking my view of the river and the Vieux Carre, streets are being widened and re-routed in anticipation of the casino's opening in just a few weeks, and Canal Street is starting to look clean again. Change is all around me and there is a change coming for AIDSLaw also.

This will be my last column as Executive Director. I have decided that it is time to move along and allow some different ideas to percolate at this desk. No one has enjoyed what they do any more than I have in our fight to bring legal services to the HIV/AIDS communities and I will sorely miss that fight and many of the people that I have been privileged to meet and help. I hope that I have in some way given back at least as much as I have gained in my time with AIDSLaw. With that said, we have some items to touch on this issue.

Once again New Orleanians braved the heat and humidity for the annual NO/AIDS Walk. This year it was held on Sunday, September 19 in Audubon Park and AIDSLaw fielded its usual crew of walkers and runners. The walk started at 10:30 sharp, but the various activities began at 8:00, and our participants were treated to an early brunch at Board Member John Royes' wonderful home just two blocks from the start. John outdid himself and deserves many thanks for his efforts, as does the whole AIDSLaw team for coming out so early to help with a very worthy cause.

I am proud to announce that Board Member/Treasurer Martha Kegel has been selected by the Louisiana Lesbian and Gay Political Action Caucus (LAGPAC) to receive their COmmunity Fist award. Martha has been a standard bearer for LAGPAC and has made an extended commitment to activism on their behalf. She is to be commended for finding time away from her normal duties with the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation and as a member of our board to aid LAGPAC, and the community as a whole. The award ceremony will be held on October 9th and LAGPAC may be contacted at 504-836-9086 for more information.

I am also proud to announce that I will be in Washington, DC on October 13-15 to receive the Points of Light Foundation's Presidential Service Award for my efforts in another of my fights, eradicating blighted housing and providing low-income New Orleanians with affordable housing. While there, I will indulge in some blatant cross-over in duties and will be meeting with a number of officials that can open doors (to housing) for people in Louisiana who are living with HIV/AIDS.

Staff attorney Stacey Evans will be meeting with representatives of the American Bar Association on October 21st to discuss HIV/AIDS and trends in family law. She and other area attorneys will be addressing custody and permanency placement questions that are arising more and more often as HIV/AIDS continues its move into new populations. This area of the law is changing very quickly and Stacey will be AIDSLaw's point person on that front.

Well, that's about it. I want to thank everyone for their support and for their efforts on behalf of AIDSLaw. In spite of the rumors and myths that are cropping up, the fight is not over. There is still a long way to go and I will be in the thick of it. Stay in touch.

Return to the Table of Contents

POZ Expo Tour

Poz Magazine, a nationally recognized publication addressing HIV/AIDS, will be holding an Expo at the Marriott Hotel on Canal Street on December 3rd. The Expo will feature presentations, exhibitions and demonstrations on many health and related topics. Those of us who are in the fight against AIDS in our area are quite pleased that Poz has chosen New Orleans as one of the twelve sites for the Expo around the country. It is especially meaningful because the Expo Tour will be in the Crescent City during World AIDS Week. World AIDS Day is December 1st and there will be a social gathering of Poz Expo participants and community leaders and volunteers on the night of December 2nd. The tour will be during the day on the 3rd, and NO/AIDS Task Force's Art Against AIDS will be the night of the 3rd. The whole week will be filled with activities and gatherings and we hope that you will help us welcome Poz to our city.

Return to the Table of Contents

Statistics about HIV and AIDS

• Number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Louisiana as of April 26, 1999: 10,954.
• Number of AIDS-related deaths in Louisiana as of April 26, 1999: 6,879.
• 123 children in Louisiana have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.
• 63 of those living with HIV/AIDS in Louisiana are African-American.
• 839 people over 50 and 237 people over 60 have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in Louisiana.
• There are over 1200 people living with HIV/AIDS in Jefferson, St. Tammany, St. Bernard and Tangipahoa Parishes.
• Heterosexual transmission of HIV/AIDS is substantially higher in Louisiana than in the rest of the US.

Return to the Table of Contents

HIV-Discrimination in Health Insurance Coverage

Some health insurance policies exclude coverage for HIV/AIDS-related treatment or a place a lower dollar cap on this treatment than on treatment for other conditions. It was widely believed that the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) outlawed these discriminatory practices. Both the EEOC and the Department of Justice held that HIV-specific exclusions and caps were barred by the ADA and many insurers and employers dropped such provisions after the statute's enactment.

Unfortunately, most federal circuits have addressed the issue have interpreted the ADA to provide little or no protection in the area of health insurance. The latest case, arising in the Seventh Circuit, Doe v. Mutual of Omaha, No. 98-4112, (7th Cir. June 2, 1999), involved an individual health insurance policy with a $25,000 lifetime ceiling on HIV-related coverage, compared with $1,000,000 in coverage for other conditions. The insurer acknowledged that it had no actuarial justification for the lower HIV cap.

In Doe, the court interpreted the ADA to apply only to access to the goods and services offered by a business, not to the content of those foods or services. Since people with HIV had access to the same policies that the insurer offered to non-disabled members of the general public, the court found no violation. The Third Circuit has similarly held that the ADA governs only access to, not the content of, insurance policies. Ford v. Schering-Plough Corp, 145 F.3d 601 (3rd. Cir. 1998).

The Sixth Circuit has interpreted the ADA even more narrowly, finding that it applies only to goods or services used by a consumer within a "place of public accommodation" i.e., within a facility that the insurer or other business holds open to the general public. Unless the insured uses a health policy in the insurance company's sales office, the ADA offers no protection. Parker v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 121 F.3d 1006 (6th Cir. 1997).

The Doe decision has implications for employer group health coverage. In concluding that the $25,000 cap was not discriminatory the court reasoned that the terms of the policy do not distinguish between persons with HIV-AIDS and non-disabled persons, but rather only distinguish between different medical treatments. Since everyone was entitled to the same treatments, the majority found no discrimination against people with HIV.

But as a dissent pointed out, an insurer or employer will likely claim that any illness suffered by a person with HIV is HIV-related. The dissent also concluded that the discriminatory intent of the cap could scarcely be clearer" the limitation was purposeful and severe, and affects only people with HIV/AIDS.

Even where courts recognize that HIV-specific caps and exclusions are discriminatory, the ADA lets insurers underwrite, classify and administer risks according to state laws. This could be interpreted as permitting insurers to discriminate without an actuarial justification unless state law requires one. Louisiana has a law (La. R. S. 22:652) that appears to require such a justification, but no reported decision has interpreted it.

The ADA also permits an employer to sponsor any "bona fide benefit plan" so long as the risk classification is not a subterfuge. The three federal circuits which have interpreted this provision have allowed disability-based distinctions in employee health coverage unless the employer intended to induce disabled workers to quit their jobs or discourage disabled job applicants. Ford v. Schering-Plough; Krauel v. Iowa Methodist Med. Center, 95 F.3d 674 (8th Cir. 1996); Moderno v. King, 82 F.3d 1059 (D.C. Cir. 1995). Since intent is very difficult to prove in such cases, this interpretation is a green-light for HIV-related discrimination in employer group health plans.

Other decisions have limited ADA rights. Two federal circuits have held that retired employees are not protected against disability specific limitations in an employer group health plan/ Gonzales V. Garner Food Services Inc., 89 F3d 1523 (11th Cir. 1996); EEOC v. CNA Ins. Co., 96 F3d 1039 (7th Cir. 1996). Another circuit disagreed based on a different line of Supreme Court cases. Ford v. Schering-Plough Corp., 145 F.3d 601 (3rd. Cir. 1998). Employers might rely on these decisions to justify eliminating or placing a cap on coverage for HIV/AIDS after the employee has retired. Two courts have even questioned whether the ADA can apply to insurance policies in light of federal statutes generally leaving insurance regulation to the states.

The Fifth Circuit hasn't decided whether the ADA applies to health insurance, but in 1991 the court held that retroactive caps did not violate ERISA, adopting reasoning very like that used by the court in the Doe decision. The ADA may need to be amended by Congress before it offers any real protection int his area. In the meantime, the best and perhaps only way to challenge an HIV-specific insurance limitation in Louisiana is La. R. S. 22:652 mentioned earlier. And due to ERISA, the state statute can't apply to self-funded employer group plans.

Return to the Table of Contents

Thanks

Return to the Table of Contents

Diana Sandigo-Cabrera

Our intern this summer from the Gillis W. Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola Law School was Diana Santiago. She is originally from Managua, Nicaragua, and has lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Diana received her undergraduate degree in Ancient Philosophy from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, and is entering her second year in the Civil Law Program at Loyola. Before coming to New Orleans, Diana worked as a fund-raiser for an Off-Broadway theatre company where she was responsible for an annual budget of 1.8M. She would like to continue her education after law school by pursuing a Master's Degree in Theology. Diana plans to fulfill her Law and Poverty graduation requirement at Loyola by joining us again as a volunteer this Fall when she will assist us in translating all our pamphlets into Spanish.

Return to the Table of Contents

Gail Lambert

A little over two years ago, Gail E. Lambert came to AIDSLaw as a Summer Law Clerk through the Federal Work Study Program following her first year at Tulane Law School. She has been with us ever since.

Born in Japan (and fluent in both written and spoken Japanese), Gail graduated magna cum laude from Smith College with a degree in religion and Biblical studies. While in college, she worked at a community action program and served as its executive director. After being certified in alcohol and drug counseling, Gail worked for two years as a substance abuse counselor for women

Gail is also a talented photographer with works published in two magazines. She's also started a community theater drawing on prior experience in New York where she studied with Stella Adler. Gail was in the original cast of A Chorus Line.

Despite all these accomplishments, Gail is proudest of raising her two children alone.

Return to the Table of Contents