The Disease with Civil Rights, II
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1994 <8/28>

      Let us revisit the challenge I received to put a face on AIDS. Admittedly I only talked to one person on the subject with the first post on the subject. Now I have two faces right from the Tampa Tribune, one of Herman Easter with something the Trib calls AIDS and one of Alice McKee who inches her way to the kitchen from her bed with her walker. Lets us discuss these faces.
      I have two pictures of Herman Easter one from mid 1993 and the other from 20 October 1993. The earliest is smiling and could have any time in his past. The latter is of him speaking before an eighth grade class at St. Mary's Episcopal Day School. I assure you he shows no signs of any disease or illness.
      OK, maybe he is hiding it well. No. The caption says he tested positive for HIV and not that he has any disease associated with it. Now I go back to the former article. He was diagnosed as HIV+ in 1990. He was 42 years old in mid 1993. At that time he was living on welfare and medical benefits. He says he got the disease through needle sharing.
      He WORKS as a volunteer for the Tampa AIDS Network. Note he is healthy enough to work and he lives on welfare and medical benefits. Note he has not the slightest sign of any disease. Note that some time in the three years between 1990 and 1993 he went on welfare, i.e. ceased productive work.
      That is a face of AIDS. Now lets meet the face of Alice McKee from the 8 August 1994 story.
      She is 93 years old. She can barely walk. The accompanying picture supports this claim. To quote, "On a good day she is able to climb into the shower and wash her hair." The writer is this story (Lindsay Peterson) can do as good a job as I can at telling the story so let me simply quote it.

      "The services come from government and community groups that receive state and federal money. But unlike nursing homes, which get automatic payments for poor residents, these agencies depend upon special grants. They are severely limited, even though home and community care costs a fraction of nursing home care.
      "The requests for services far outstrip what's available, though many never even ask."

      This is what I said. A perfectly health working volunteer gets all welfare and medical benefits the federal and state programs allow simply by showing up and saying HIV+. A 93 year old woman barely able to take care of herself and wanting desperately to stay out of a nursing home gets next to nothing and is qualified for nothing.
      This is the real face of AIDS. It is not the face of some sympathy extracting person laying in bed. It is the face of a very healthy person working as an unpaid volunteer (if that much) collecting the max. The other side of that face is they are eating up all the monies available while truly need people can not be helped for lack of money.
      The facts are that Herman Easter is sucking off of the system and deserves not one penny and Alice McKee is months away from a nursing home and can not get one penny in assistance. There are finite dollars in this world. HIV+ welfare cheats are getting those dollars while people who need them can not get them. Cheat is the correct word. These people are no better than the scum of the earth who draw more than one welfare check. They have no right to the first check save that the rules direct that anyone dealing with the HIV+ qualify them for everything, scream and run away.
      Is there any wonder why we are reading that young gays are not using any form of protection? It is not fatalism. It is the current strains of the disease where they may not show symptoms for ten years and they get a free ride on the social safety net for all of those years and then into the five more years it takes them to die. They are 15 to 20 years old and looking forward to 15 years on the gravy train of EVERY benefit in existence.
      The benefits? Welfare payments. Food stamps. Subsidized housing. Medicaid. Here in Florida, the last place that really needs cable TV, it is an allowable expense. Everything but a free car but rest assured they do get transportation covered to doctors and the like. When the time comes ten years down the road they will get full in home medical care without question, something Alice McKee can not get.
      And another benefit? No working. No paying taxes. No hassles in life save those they create for themselves.
      It is a wonderful life. But only in America.