During a sweaty night in Houston 33 years ago, on Aug. 19, 1992, I spoke to the Republican National Convention and, via television, to millions of others. My speech, “ A Whisper of AIDS ,” took 13 minutes of the four or five years I was told I had left.

I had AIDS. Everyone said it would kill me.

However, I did not die. Thanks to incredible medical research, AIDS was converted from certain death to possible life for those with access to new drugs. Today about 1.2 million Americans live with HIV/AIDS and 50,000 or so are added to this total each year. Thanks to drugs many people can’t afford, an AIDs diagnosis is no longer a death sentence. Medicaid is redemptive. Federal resources save lives. And I am alive to bear witness to the danger that still lurks in our communities, to the eno

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