Broken, Disastrous: Native American Government-Run Health Care: “Don’t Get Sick After June” (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on September 13, 2009
I’ve written about this before, but in light of Congress and Pres. Obama not coming forth on the failures of government-run Indian Health Services, it’s imperative that Americans know how dismal socialized medicine programs for Native Americans in the United States are. How this government-run health plan for Native Americans, after seven long decades to get the health program running efficiently and effectively, still fails so many of the people it was intended to help.
If our government can’t get it right after having 70 years to do so, why does the Obama administration think they can deftly, satisfactorily run ObamaCare for ALL Americans, not just Native Americans, without making a horrific, expensive mess of that, too? I don’t want my children or grandchildren, 70 years after implementation of ObamaCare, to still have poorer quality health care than we have now in America. Tort reform and competition by way of de-regulating state borders are but two beginnings to the fixing of all of America’s health care systems… but so much more is needed on the reservations.
Lofty, feel-good rhetorical assurances from Obama don’t erase the stark facts, don’t alter the government’s crappy track record on the reservations. Fix Indian health care first before plunging all of America into another trillion-dollar, doomed-to-fail health care experiment.
We aren’t guinea pigs, Mr. President.
From Dakota Voice: A Look at Government Health Care: Go to the Reservation
South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds is weighing in on the proposed government takeover of health care, and he’s talking about experience with government health care that many other states may not have.
Rounds says one need only look at the state of government-supplied Native American health care to see what an abysmal failure socialized health care is…
FOX News Investigation at Lower Brule Reservation: Native American Health Care: “Don’t Get Sick After June” | August 2009
Kennebec Journal Morning Sentinel: American Indians have government health care
We do not need to compare the universal health-care system in Canada and England to know what government run health-care will be like in the United States. All we have to do is look at the health care our government provides American Indians.
The Indian Health Service currently spends about the same per Native American as Finland, Spain and other countries Obama has said demonstrate that we can spend less and get better outcomes.How is this working for them? Rates of infant mortality, heart disease, HIV/AIDS and liver cancer are significantly higher than among non-hispanic whites, and diabetes-related deaths are four times higher. On one reservation in South Dakota, life expectancy in 2007 was 58 years, while the national average is 77 years.
The motto on reservations is “don’t get sick after June” because that’s when federal money usually runs out. In addition, fraud, waste and mismanagement are problems.
A number of tribes are now moving away from the IHS system and doing tribal contracting, where they provide their own health-care funding from the IHS. They now administer their own hospitals and clinics and wind up with better access and better quality care.
“To See Government Promises Broken, Go to the Reservation”: Rapid City Tax Day Tea Party, April 2009 – Ira Taken Alive
From Terry Anderson, Wall Street Journal: Native Americans and the Public Option – After decades of government-run care, some Indians are finally saying enough.
Native Americans have received federally funded health care for decades. A series of treaties, court cases and acts passed by Congress requires that the government provide low-cost and, in many cases, free care to American Indians. The Indian Health Service (IHS) is charged with delivering that care…
The IHS spends about $2,100 per Native American each year, which is considerably below the $6,000 spent per capita on health care across the U.S. But IHS spending per capita is about on par with Finland, Japan, Spain and other top 20 industrialized countries—countries that the Obama administration has said demonstrate that we can spend far less on health care and get better outcomes…
Unfortunately, Indians are not getting healthier under the federal system. In 2007, rates of infant mortality among Native Americans across the country were 1.4 times higher than non-Hispanic whites and rates of heart disease were 1.2 times higher. HIV/AIDS rates were 30% higher, and rates of liver cancer and inflammatory bowel disease were two times higher. Diabetes-related death rates were four times higher. On average, life expectancy is four years shorter for Native Americans than the population as a whole.
Rural Indians fare even worse, as data from Sen. [Max] Baucus’s home state show. According to IHS statistics, in Montana and Wyoming, Indians suffer diabetes at rates 20% higher, heart disease 12% higher, and lung cancer rates 67% higher than the average across all IHS regions in the country. A recent Harvard University study found that life expectancy on a reservation in neighboring South Dakota was 58 years. The national average is 77…
Video encore… powerful and haunting.
Native Americans Against Obama: The Hype
The following excerpt I’ve posted before, but feel its message warrants a second posting:
From Fort Peck Journal, Health Care Reform: IHS “horror” stories:
Health care for Indians is part of treaty rights guaranteed to all federally recognized tribes.
According to the IHS mission, they’re sole purpose is “to raise the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to the highest level.” Their goal: “to assure that comprehensive, culturally acceptable personal and public health services are available and accessible to American Indian and Alaska Native people.” Their foundation: “to uphold the Federal Government’s obligation to promote healthy American Indian and Alaska Native people, communities, and cultures and to honor and protect the inherent sovereign rights of Tribes.”
Despite their goals, mission, and promises, IHS has not been upholding their part of the deal.
Funding for IHS has been repeatedly cut over the years. For the Fort Peck Service Unit, which covers the entire Fort Peck Reservation and it’s residents, patients can only be treated if they are at “Level 12 – Life or Limb” status, meaning that a person will only be treated if they are in immediate danger of dying or losing a limb.
This status cuts off all preventative medicine and other treatments. So, someone who goes into the clinic for treatment of stomach pains will be given pills instead of being examined. With this, IHS doctors overlook the source of the problem, and it grows into something worse.
Case in point. Our current Tribal Chairman, A.T. “Rusty” Stafne, went into IHS because there was pain in his back. This was a few years ago, and then he was serving as a leader on the Tribal Executive Board. As a TEB member, he has to sit for long periods of time during long, drawn out council meetings.
Stafne had a hard time sitting down for long periods of time because there was always pain in his back. He went to IHS a number of times, and each time he was given pills but never examined. After this went on for awhile, Stafne resigned from the TEB because it was becoming to hard for him to sit for long periods of time. IHS kept giving him pills but never referred him out to be treated, so finally one day he went to a Veterans Affairs hospital for treatment. It was there the doctors told him that the pain he was having was because he had cancer, and if he didn’t go to those doctors and kept relying on IHS he would not be our Chairman today.
Other stories include a man who went in for stomach pains, diagnosed with the flu, and was later hospitalized with a burst appendix; a woman went to an IHS dentist for a check up and had her vocal cords slit; a tribal member who lives off the reservation underwent heart surgery and came back to be seen by a doctor and was told that he needed another surgery but IHS refuses to pay for it because he lives off the rez; a woman with a terminal disease was put on pain medication and when she became very addicted she was taken off the meds and died of withdrawals the same day she was taken off the script.
The list goes on, and on, and on…
Related reading on government-run Native American health care & other health care issues:
NewsVine: Promises, promises: Indian Health Care Victims
Hot Air: An American Government Health Care System You Should Know
NDN News: Reauthorization of Indian Health Care Improvement Act ‘Desperately’ Needed
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Walking Barefoot in a Pasture: Stepping in the Cow Patties of Government-Run Health Care Horror Stories (video) and Native Americans Against Obama: ‘The Hype’
Indian Country Today: Trahant: The double standard of government-run health care: Indian Health Service
Mommy: Ta’Shon’s Story: A Look at the Government’s Record on Health Care
HoodaThunk?: The single-payer healthcare system in our own backyard.
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), Big Government: Health Care Reform – The Right Way
NLM Gateway: Native Americans Lag Behind in Health Insurance Coverage, Access, and Use: Evidence from the National Survey of America’s Families.
Derek Hunter, Big Government: Obama votes “present” in health care debate
The Weekly Standard: Choosy Moms Don’t Choose Socialized Medicine
VotingFemale Speaks!: ObamaCare, A Cost Too Great; Socialists’ “Concessions” Don’t Address near $1 Trillion Costs
The Health Care Blog: Is Mandated Universal Coverage the Right Way to Achieve Health Reform? The Health Reform Debate We Haven’t Had Yet
About the author
[...] and to honor and protect the inherent sovereign rights of Tribes.” … Original post: Broken, Disastrous: Native American Government-Run Health Care … Share and [...]
they do Not care
where are our medicine people they care
we must go back to our ways before all is really lost
stop listening to/on deaf ears
OUR WAYS ARE CALLING
prayers to everyone
standsalonewolf..
Standsalonewolf, sadly, you’re right, many do not care.
But many do. I am one of them. We must all work to correct this disastrous situation. Native Americans should not be under the thumb of the government for their health care.
God bless you, and I thank you for your input.
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