Beware: spoilers follow.
Like many other films that dramatize a historical event with a specific cause in mind, The Normal Heart ends with text discussing what happened after the events of the movie. Like the events of the film itself, this text shows no progress for the cause. Instead, it's more setbacks, interspersed with Tommy adding more names to his list of the dead. This is yet another powerful reminder of the consequences of inaction from those with power.
Ned's meetup with the advisor to the president is ended when the advisor mentions how reported cases are limited to homosexuals. This introduces the idea that the inaction from so many is because of discrimination in society. It implies that the government's holding back funding because they see this as a "gay problem". Despite having declared AIDS an epidemic previously, they're still hesitant to put too much priority on it.
Meanwhile, the narrative also is heavily critical of gay politics. Many members of the film's gay community express a distaste for the idea of going back on their recently found sexual liberation, and feel that worrying about the disease as Ned does will set the cause back to the drawing boards. Even in the final moments of the film, when there are people dead all about from the disease, the organization working to advocate the gay perspective holds the same opinion. Is this a bad thing? That's not expressed for certain, and the partial ambiguity makes this idea more fascinating.
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