And here we are, some 20+ years later, and there still isn't a cure for AIDS, despite 8 wondrous years of Bill Clinton, despite billions of dollars spent by many countries to the detriment of research into the cure of other less "fashionable" diseases.
They do have a point, however; Reagan could have stopped AIDS in America by quarantining carriers early and shutting down businesses that promoted the spread of the disease, but we all know how that would have gone over. In the end, everyone knew that (a) the odds of getting AIDS if you lead a clean life were extremely small, and (b) if those that were at risk of getting AIDS wouldn't do anything to help themselves then there really wasn't a moral obligation to help them.
One rather interesting facet of liberalism is that it imparts nobility to victimhood. If someone is harmed by something, one should be entitled to benefit from it; one should not try to mitigate harm, because reducing the harm one suffers would reduce the amount of 'relief' to which one was entitled.
The notion that it is better to have problems and blame someone else for them, than not to have the problems in the first place, seems bizarre, but it seems to have infected a lot of people in a lot of ways. I don't know what the best way to counter this infectious notion, but perhaps forcing it into the open will help.