Terry Anderson at PERC in Montana discusses an existing “public option” in health care, the Indian Health Service here.
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.
and
Such horror stories are common on reservations, where the common
wisdom is “don’t get sick after June”?the month when the federal
dollars usually run out. Late last year, the Montana Quarterly
interviewed Tommy Connell, a member of the Blackfeet tribe and a worker
in the IHS hospital in Browning, Mont. He didn’t pull any punches in
his assessment of the IHS. “They’re lying to us,” he said of promises
over the years of more funds and better care. “You can pass just about
any bill you want, but to appropriate money to that bill, that’s
another thing.”Dismal statistics prompted Mr. Baucus to declare a “health state of
emergency” on the Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana and to
order an investigation of the IHS’s use of funds. In July 2008, the
Government Accountability Office reported that the IHS simply lost
$15.8 million worth of equipment such as trucks and Jaws of Life
machines between 2004 and 2007. It also found that $700,000 worth of
computers were ruined by bat dung.
