The Nation - News from June 23, 1988

A House panel approved a $400 million-a-year AIDS testing and counseling bill that includes stiff penalties for breaching the confidentiality of a patient’s test results. The bill, in the works for a year before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, would give grants to states and to clinics, health centers and hospitals to expand testing programs. It would require post-test counseling to all who take the test for the fatal disease, whether they were infected or not. The committee sent the bill to the House floor on a voice vote after sponsors took out a section banning discrimination against people with AIDS or the virus that causes it. “The broad, private-sector, non-discrimination policy was clearly too controversial for the current political climate,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles).