DAPCAN
Desert AIDS Project Community Action Newsletter
March 28, 2013
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Editorial Staff
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David Brinkman
Chief Executive Officer
Barry Dayton
Director of Marketing and Communications
Alexis Ortega
Interactive Marketing
Specialist
Rick Vila
Volunteer Co-editor
John Lewis
Volunteer Co-editor
Steve Bolerjack
Volunteer Co-editor
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Tuesday, April 2, 6:00 - 8:00 PM: Positive Life Series
Aging Well with HIV
 What can you expect in growing older with HIV and what to do about it? Daniel Tietz from ACRIA in NYC will give you his thoughts. As always, a light supper is served at 6:00 PM, and the program begins at 6:30 PM. The location is the Sinatra Auditorium at Desert Regional Medical Center (corner of Tachevah and Via Miraleste in Palm Springs) and the event, sponsored by Jewish Family Service of the Desert, is always free. ASL translation is provided. Questions? Email positivelifeseries@gmail.com. Plan to attend and bring a friend! (rv) Upcoming programs:May 7 - Update on latest in HIV treatments and cure research from the Retrovirus Conference (CROI), with D.A.P. medical director Dr. Homayoon Khanlou.
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Thursday, April 25: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner!
Dining Out For Life
 Last year, more than 40 restaurants participated in and contributed to Dining Out for Life. For breakfast, lunch, dinner, bagels or a drink at the bar, these restaurants and diners like you supported client services Desert AIDS Project! We're thrilled and wowed by all the community support. Do Good. Eat Well. Dine Out and Fight AIDS! Click here for more information. (jl)(rv)
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Desert AIDS Project's Community Services Wing, also known as the Community Center, houses many activities and programs including arts and crafts workshops, bingo, movies, lending library and drop-in hours when clients may come in to just hang out with friends. The Community Center also hosts educational programs and classes designed to increase health literacy and empower clients to participate more in their own care. Follow this link to see details about next week's featured events listed below. If you would like to attend any of these events, please RSVP to Ray Robertson at 760.323.2118, ext. 295 or email rrobertson@desertaidsproject.org.
Upcoming Community Center featured events:
Acupuncture, now every Wednesday from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Every Thursday, 1:00 PM (no RSVP needed)
MOVIE & PIZZA! Ongoing Community Center activities:
- Support groups
- Hepatitis C therapy education
- Diabetes education
- Stitch in Time (needlecraft) - Third Wednesday of each month
- Community Center Computer Lab
- Lending Library
- Free films, Thursdays, 1:00 PM
- Afternoon tea, every Wednesday, 3:00 PM
Be sure to check out the complete Community Center Schedule for ongoing programs and drop-in hours.
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The price you'll pay for silence
by Rick Vila
Whether you know it or not, like it or not, there are forces at play against many us in the hallowed grounds of Washington. There, many of our elected representatives are considering changing the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security and veterans benefits, resulting in a combined $146 billion in  cuts over the next 10 years. The COLA change, called the "chained CPI," would hurt seniors, veterans, and disabled Americans who already live on tight budgets stretched by rising utility costs, grocery bills, and health care. The info-graphic on the left is there to help you understand how this proposal might affect you. This is the price you will pay for your silence. I urge each and every one of you reading this to take a brief moment to lift it, and become a warrior for your own good by posting this on your Facebook, Twitter, or other social media account, or simply talk about it with your family and friends, and anyone else you know. Only we can make sure our hard-earned Social Security and veterans benefits are not included in a harmful budget deal. Take action NOW! (rv)
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 Wisdom for White!by Rick Vila
Palm Springs comes alive each Spring with the world renowned White Party, a circuit-style dance festival that attracts men (and women) of all ages from around the world to an orgasmic weekend of live- and-let-live fun. Those of us lucky enough to live here will surely see the young and the restless among us all weekend long. I've attended several White Parties, and many circuit events around the world myself, and have fantastic memories to smile about. The not-so-pleasant memories are seeing beautiful men and women fallen because they could not see the "red" among all the "white". The red are the lights that shine for all of us to tell us when enough is enough. Sadly many chose to ignore these red lights (or can it be that they just don't see them?) when they are so obvious to others. I have no moral opinion on the use of "party" drugs, but I do have some advice:
- know which drugs you are using (if any) and how they interact
- drink lots of water at all times
- educate yourself about drug interactions
- identify exits at all event locations
- be careful what you drink from, or snort from for that matter...
- party with trusted friends, who will look out for you in a crisis
- read up on how street drugs interact with HIV drugs
- pace out your drug use...there's a certain "high" whose only other "higher" is death
- have condoms in your pocket and practice harm reduction
- tell your sex play mates your HIV and HEP C status
- tune in to your angels, not your demons
- enjoy the music, the shows, the lights, the beautiful people
- know that the most beautiful person of all is YOU
To learn more about "party" drugs I suggest you visit:
Happy White Party weekend to all. (rv) |
Positively Aware issues Annual HIV Drug Guide Treatment journal Positively Aware this week released its yearly HIV Drug Guide, which is an always-current and reliable reference that enables you to check on any issues or questions you may have with your regimen. It's handy to bookmark it and increase your familiarity and comfort level with the meds you are taking (although we're not sure what to make of the odd graphic at left that accompanies it). Click here for the new Drug Guide. (sb)
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Cesar Chavez Day - April 1
Desert AIDS Project will be closed on Monday, April 1, in honor of civil rights leader Cesar Chavez. And no, this is NOT an April Fools joke! (rv)
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Rivendell Media's Press Pass Q offers wide range of national, professional online news and commentary
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New LGBTQ publication, The Standard, now online
 Like many other magazines and newspapers fighting for advertisers and revenue, The Bottom Line, Palm Springs' only regular gay and lesbian news and feature publication, closed down last year. However, its former general manager, Nino Eilets, recently launched a new online publication that ought to fill some of the void: The Standard, which has already included Desert AIDS Project as one of its media partners. We wish the new digital 'zine the best of luck and encourage you to read and support it. Click here for the latest issue and here for the The Standard website. (sb)
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Historic week at the Supreme Court
by Andrew Alder, Attorney at Law
As a local attorney and long-time human rights advocate, I've often been asked about my thoughts on the oral arguments on the two marriage cases, Perry (Prop 8) and Windsor (DOMA), heard this week at the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Much ink has been spilled by countless bloviators, many of whom are doubtless much smarter and more incisive than I. No matter, here's what I think about these cases.
First, Perry is toxic for the court and, in retrospect, I would bet that many of the nine justices wish that four of them had not voted to hear it. Why? Because Perry confronts the Court,  squarely if they choose to see it, with the essential issue that cuts through the heart of all the emotional turmoil of same-sex marriage: the breadth, the inclusiveness, the true meaning of the Constitution's guarantee of Equal Protection of the law. Ultimately, all the procedural questions aside (who has standing to bring a case - an issue in Perry), the ongoing tension of federalism that is inherent in many cases that come before the Court on many different topics (the federal/state relationship is an issue in the DOMA case), at some point the Court is going to have to face this issue head-on: does the Constitution confer equal rights on gay/lesbian folks? Everything else is almost secondary, a means to allow the Court to decide without having to decide the issue that, rather like the 800-lb elephant, is either in the room or is lumbering toward the entrance. I do not believe that the Court does not like to make big decisions, that it prefers to move incrementally, as many in the media have suggested. That is certainly the reputation that the Court itself likes to foster, and many commentators are only too willing to enable that fiction. The fact is the Supreme Court is just fine issuing major, determinative rulings, often when it does not have to. In 2005 the Court found an unfettered private citizen right to bear arms under the Second Amendment. In 2010 the Court issued the sweeping Citizens United decision. The fact is the Court, THIS Court, led by conservatives, is jolly well ready to issue major law-changing opinions when it suits. Certainly the conservatives on the Court take this position, the liberal block less so, but it is a fact.
Now-well-known Judge Vaughn Walker's trial opinion from the District Court and the decision from the panel of the 9th Circuit Court were both love letters to one person, to the ONLY person who makes a difference in this entire debate...Justice Anthony Kennedy. As undemocratic as it sounds, that one man holds the fate of all of us in his hands. Unfair as that may be, it is also a fact.
It was widely reported that the Court is looking for an "off-ramp" with regard to Perry, that it may find a way to not decide the merits of the case by finding that the plaintiffs' therein have no standing to even bring the case. But there is a legitimate question as to whether this group has standing under Article 3 of the Constitution. To be sure, Article 3 standing is not the same as standing under any state's law so it is a real question. But in dealing with Perry on that basis the Court will create more problems for itself down the road. My view is that Kennedy, a thoughtful and intelligent man, as well as a courageous one, will, despite the odds and despite the comments of the chattering classes, at the end of the day, decide Perry on its merits. I predict that, come June, by a 5 to 4 vote, the Court will strike down Prop 8 and hold there is a 50-state right to same-sex marriage. I could be wrong, of course, but over the next several months as the justices think about these cases and as the draft opinions circulate around the court building, I think Kennedy will see the 800-lb elephant for what it is.
DOMA is a hoax in some sense. The section of DOMA directly under attack is only about federal benefits, and one could go down the intellectual cul de sac of the deference Congress must, or must not, show the states with respect to the state police power (that IS an issue inside the Windsor case, but it is not the only one). Like Perry, Windsor gives the Court the chance to rule on the real issue involved, and that is, once again, the Equal Protection (EP) aspects of treating same-sex married couples any differently from opposite-sex couples. The conservatives do NOT want to address any aspect of EP while the liberal wing does with the pathway for Windsor, once again, depending on Justice Kennedy. I predict that Kennedy will, despite what he may have said during oral argument, decide Windsor as an EP case and not rely on the more narrow, strained filter of seeing this as strictly a matter of federal-state relations. And there is a compelling reason to do so: the real section of DOMA, the more odious section of DOMA is the one that purports to allow any state to ignore the same-sex marriage granted by any other state. This provision, not even before the Court in Windsor, is a direct frontal assault by Congress on a specific provision of the Constitution's text and that provision is the Full Faith and Credit Clause (FF&CC) that says the judgment of any state must be recognized by every other state. NO ONE is talking about this aspect of things in the media save Howard Fineman on MSNBC last night, and he brought this up only in passing. The point is, despite the Court's desire to get these cases behind it, you can bet a lot of money that GLAAD in Boston or someone else already has prepared for filing in federal court another DOMA lawsuit, this one aimed directly at the FF&CC. That action will force the Court to, once again, face the EP arguments that it so desperately does not want to deal with.
Bottom line, putting off a decision grounded in EP will only prolong the agony for the right wing. I do not expect Justice Kennedy to try and deliver the conservatives from themselves, so to say. But I do fully expect him, in the quiet of the next few months, to see the full contextual panoply that is present here. Deciding Perry on standing grounds and thus allowing same-sex marriage in California only, striking down the now-contested section of DOMA (which WILL happen) on either the ground of federalism or, more likely in my view as noted above, on EP grounds, will only serve to punt this EP issue down the road. Consider this: the nightmare scenario for the Court, and for the conservatives, is a case that does not involve the disparate treatment of same-sex couples vis-a-vis straight couples, rather, it is a case that involves two same-sex couples who, because of situs (where they live) are treated differently under the law. Such a lawsuit is not the stuff of fantasy; were I one of the lawyers involved I would have already sought out and identified two such same-sex couples. Removing the sex difference from such a case, and focusing in on the disparate treatment of like couples similarly situated...that is the essence of an EP argument.
I could be VERY wrong in how all this comes down, of course, and the Court might just well decide to expose itself, and the country, to more years of litigation. But this is a problem of the Court's own making. Once you really begin to examine the issues presented in opposition to allowing us to marry, you then lead inexorably down into the rabbit hole where one has to talk about over 55's who cannot procreate or the nonsense of 'skim-milk' marriages. In a word, that is Jabberwocky, a notorious language with which to deal. (rv)
Editor's note: Andrew Alder practices law in Palm Springs and can be reached via email: andrewvincentalder@gmail.com, or by phone @760.424.9866
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"It is very important for us to remember we're a nation in which everybody's supposed to be  equal before the law. I've known a lot of same-sex couples who are committed, who are raising kids. For them to be treated differently - I think is not fair. And I think an increasing number of Americans agree with that. So I think it is time for the justices to examine this issue, and I certainly believe that those states that have made a decision to recognize these couples as being married, that the federal government has to respect that decision by the states. That's traditionally been how it works." |
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Ongoing Benefits, Resources & Information
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Keep track of healthcare reform changes
 If you are on Medicare, it's important to keep track of ongoing changes in coverage and payment options. Most importantly, the "donut hole" of Medicare Part D drug plan co-pays begins to close this year (see below). Regardless of your current insurance situation, click here for a government website that provides some guidance regarding Medicare, Medicaid and other possible insurance options (albeit limited) for those living with disabilities and/or chronic health issues (pay particular attention to the Medicare and Timeline tabs). And click here for an even more detailed summary. (sb)
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ADAP may pay Medicare Part D premium 
ADAP-eligible clients who have to purchase Part D prescription drug coverage may qualify to have their Part D premium paid by the State of California. Follow this link to the Part D Premium Payment Program Application. You can also call the State of California at 916.449.5900 for more information. (jl)
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Help with Medicare
 The State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) offers one-on-one counseling and assistance to people with Medicare and their families. This includes information about original Medicare, Medicare Health Plans, Medicare Prescription Drug Plans, Medicare Supplemental policies and Long-term Care Insurance. The California Department of Aging (CDA) is responsible for statewide administration of SHIP, which is delivered through the Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program (HICAP). HICAP services can be accessed via a toll-free line at 800.434.0222. The local HICAP counselor is located at the Mizell Center in Palm Springs and can be reached at 760.323.5689. Follow this link for more information.
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Help paying for prescription medications
 Among the resources available to HIV-positive people to help pay for prescription medications is NeedyMeds. The mission of NeedyMeds is to make information about assistance programs available to low-income patients and their advocates at no cost. Go to www.needymeds.org, look up the medications you need and you'll be directed to the patient assistance program website for that manufacturer. The site also offers a free drug discount card that is accepted at more than 62,000 pharmacies. If you are having trouble paying for your medications this site is worth a look! (jl) (sb)
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Help paying for private health insurance premiums 
If you or someone you are close to is HIV positive and paying for private health insurance, there may be help in paying premiums. The California Department of Public Health, Office of AIDS ( OA) administers the Health Insurance Premium Payment ( OA- HIPP) Program. OA has expanded OA- HIPP to make this program available to more individuals with health insurance who are at risk of losing it, and to individuals currently without health insurance who would like to purchase it. You do NOT need to be a D.A.P. client to access OA-HIPP. Follow this link to see if you qualify, and also check out the above links in the Healthcare reforms article. (jl) (sb)
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Quest Diagnostics website
Riverside County Healthcare (RCHC) Lab services are provided at both Riverside County Regional Medical Center (RCRMC) in Moreno Valley and Quest Diagnostics. All former LabCorps patients are now served at Quest. Click here or above for the Quest website: locations, hours and to make an appointment. Back to top |
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Medically Indigent Services Program (MISP)
AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP)
 For those who qualify, medical care and help paying for your medications are available through the MISP and ADAP programs.* Find out if you qualify: schedule an appointment by calling the numbers below. You can schedule your MISP and ADAP appointments together for Moreno Valley office ONLY. Call no sooner than four weeks before your ADAP qualifying expiration date (usually around your birthday). If you qualify for ADAP only, the local ADAP office is right across the driveway, south of D.A.P., at the Palm Springs Family Care Center. Specify the Palm Springs office when you call. Here are the numbers:
877.501.5085 - toll free 951.486.5375 - English
951.486.5400 - Spanish 951.486.4635 - fax
*NOTICE: Faxed MISP applications can get lost in the process. Many people who have faxed their application have had to re-apply later. It's best to apply in person in Moreno Valley, and get a "receipt of application", and use that as proof that you applied to avoid uninterrupted services with your D.A.P. medical doctor visits.
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D.A.P. contact information
 The Desert AIDS Project local phone number is 
760.323.2118. The toll-free phone number is 866.331.3344 and the website is desertaidsproject.org.
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DAPCAN back issues always available online
 Need another look at something you read in DAPCAN? Find past issues online by clicking this link. As always, you can also read the most current edition of DAPCAN on the D.A.P. website here. And we've recently updated these links to ensure that the very latest issues of DAPCAN are always available. (jl)
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D.A.P. holiday closings for 2013
April 1 - Cesar Chavez Day 
May 27 - Memorial Day
July 4 - Independence Day
September 2 - Labor Day
October 14 - Columbus Day
November 11 - Veteran's Day
November 28-29 - Thanksgiving
December 25 - Christmas Day
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Call 211 for essential human services in Riverside County
 2-1-1 is a toll-free service for residents looking for information about essential human services such as affordable housing, food pantries, help for an aging parent, free or low cost health services, addiction prevention programs, employment, support groups, volunteer opportunities, and 1,700 additional services! (jl)
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Contact information for state and federal officials--click on name:
Desert AIDS Project - Community Action Newsletter (DAPCAN) presents published material, reprinted with permission, and neither endorses or opposes any material. All information contained in this newsletter, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professional. Always discuss treatment options with a physician who specializes in treating HIV. Publication of the name or likeness of any individual in articles in this newsletter is not to be construed as any indication of the HIV status of such individual. If you do not wish to receive this e-newsletter, please notify us by using the email address below:
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Additional Contacts/Social Networking
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