On Monday, health officials in Washington D.C. released a report showing that “at least 3 percent of District residents have HIV or AIDS, a total that far surpasses the 1 percent threshold that constitutes a ‘generalized and severe’ epidemic.”

ThinkProgress interviewed Scott Evertz — director of the Office of National AIDS Policy from 2001 to 2002 — about his reaction to the report:

Shocking, but we shouldn’t be particularly shocked. We’ve known for some time that in the District and other place where we see severe economic disparities that the prevalence is as high in some of the countries that we’re assisting in Africa. I think what needs to be continued to be worked on is to recognize the differences in risk groups and the messaging and how you get messages into specific risk group populations.

Watch it:

Funding for government-sponsored domestic AIDS/HIV initiatives like the Ryan White Program flat lined during Bush’s tenure, as the administration focused its efforts around faith and community-based organizations preaching abstinence-only. In the District, the administration “called for renewing restrictions on the D.C. government’s ability to use its own funds for such purposes as a needle-exchange program for drug addicts,” despite city’s insistence that such programs were “crucial to curbing the spread of HIV and AIDS.”

Evertz, who himself “was forced out of his job at the White House in July of 2002” after bulking the conservative orthodoxy on needle exchange programs and safe-sex education for teenagers, rebuked the Bush administration’s one-size-fits-all approach to fighting the domestic AIDS epidemic.

“I think what needs to be continued to be worked on is to recognize the differences in risk groups and the messaging and how you get messages into specific risk group populations,” he said. “Abstinence until marriage has meaning to very few young gay people in the United States because they can’t get married. So I don’t think I’m being disingenuous to suggest that that message means nothing to a young gay person who’s struggling coming out.”

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When Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) asked health care crisis denier Sally Pipes about her credentials to testify as “an expert” on health care issues before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, Pipes’ lack of any serious background in health care policy exposed her real function. You see, Pipes doesn’t hold a masters degree in health policy or public policy. Nor she does have much experience in academia:

Listen:

With her ‘BA with honors’ in economics, Pipes leads a tiny ‘think tank,’ Pacific Research Institute, and advances special interest (PRI’s list of donors include Altria (formerly known as Philip Morris), Microsoft, Pfizer and ExxonMobil) agendas. PRI promotes itself a s “free-market think tank,” but Pipes offers little in the way of solutions. During her testimony, Pipes simply regurgitated Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) health care plan:

If we could change the tax code to level the playing field by removing the tax advantage from those who get their insurance through their employer, reduce state mandates that add between 20-50% to the cost of a premium, allow the purchase of insurance across state lines, and have medical malpractice reform, we could reduce costs and significantly reduce the number of uninsured in this country.

Pipes’ real contribution is her ability to conflate the administrations’ health care proposals with the evils of socialized Canadian medicine and reference discredited health care crisis deniers along the way. For instance, when Braley asked Pipes why “dont’ people who come from your point of view come to this committee and talk about constructive ways we’re going to reduce preventable medical errors” and lower overall health care costs, Pipes quoted fellow health care denier Betsy McCaughey!

The most outrageous moment of the hearing, however, belonged to Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ). In trying to keep the committee on time, Pallone accidentally pronounced Pipes as Peeps. Happy Easter, Sally!

The House Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce is holding a hearing on “Making Health Care Work for American Families: Ensuring Affordable Coverage” today and health care crisis denier Sally Pipes — who recently wrote The Ten Top Myths of American Health Care — is testifying at the invitation of the Republicans.

She’s busy propagating the myth that “the long-term goal of the new Administration and the Democrats in Congress is “Medicaid for All.” In her prepared remarks, Pipes compares Obama’s plan to the Canadian model:

My view is that the government plan will be priced lower than the private plans. The result will be “crowding out” of the private plans and a fateful turn down the road to a Canadian style “Medicaid for All” program. We may have universal coverage but not universal access. Taxes will increase significantly and weaken the entrepreneurial spirit in this country.

This is the same Sally Pipes who, in 1998, wrote an article to dismiss global climate change as an imaginary “hobgoblin” created by “propaganda” from the Environmental Protection Agency. The article also criticized the Clinton Administration for advancing the notion that efforts to reduce greenhouse gases could be harnessed to spur economic growth.

So this is who the Republicans invite to discuss reforming the health care system? An old global warming denier who caricatures the health care debate without engaging in the substance of the proposal? Things sure have changed since 93….