Make good: Congress should fix Indian health funding
The Oklahoma Editorial
Comments 
8
Published: October 27, 2009
Government statistics are stark: Life expectancy for American Indians is nearly five years less than that of the general population, and death rates from various diseases — including tuberculosis (750 percent), alcoholism (550 percent) and diabetes (190 percent) — are dramatically higher for Indians than other Americans.
Against that backdrop, Washington’s attempts to stabilize funding for the
Indian Health Service, which provides care for 1.9 million, have lagged for nearly 10 years — a situation that follows on the history of deficiencies in the federal government meeting its obligations to American Indians.
The Indian Health Service is funded through the
Department of Health and Human Services. Tribes run clinics with service funding, along with reimbursements from
Medicaid,
Medicare and insurers.
But the law authorizing the service expired in 2000. That law has been extended temporarily while lawmakers worked on permanent reauthorization — unfortunately without final success.
The delay hasn’t interrupted services, and reauthorization wouldn’t solve all the program’s problems. But among other things, bill sponsors say, it would bring modernization, increased recruitment of health care professionals and require the service’s annual budget to account for medical inflation to address chronic underfunding.
Almost as important, it would signify Washington’s commitment to make good on treaty obligations and lessen some of the frustration of American Indians and their medical providers.
Obviously, decisive legislative action is long overdue.
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I am quite familiar with the old U.S. Dept. of Agriculture surplus commodity diet. These are screen printed tin cans (no label) of beans, refried beans, pork, shortening, processed cheese spread, and some vegetables. The the perishables are cubes of butter and cheese. They were fed as much of that stuff as they could load in a trunk and that stuff can give you diabetes.
Isn't inhofe one of the OK politicians who voted AGAINST stimulus funding by our government? Is that hypocritical?