The Public Option And Native Americans
There have been many words spoken and written about what the public option in healthcare means to Americans. I wonder if the pro-healthcare-at-any-cost group is wishfully thinking or are they simply ignoring the facts.
For the past two decades Americans have listened to the politicians talk about the millions of uninsured. Finally a special interest group writes legislation for the House of Representatives that claims to be universal health care. The problem, according to the CBO, is that the bill fails to insure 10s of millions of people living in America. Did this group simply miscalculate or are they keeping some people on the table for future political purposes?
With a 29% approval rate Congress isn’t seen as doing a very good job. If you dig into the facts you find that Congress has historically performed questionably in health care.
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 attempts to provide health care to American Indians and Alaska Natives in one of two ways. It runs 48 hospitals and 230 clinics for which it hires doctors, nurses, and staff and decides what services will be provided. Or it contracts with tribes under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act passed in 1975. In this case, the IHS provides funding for the tribe, which delivers health care to tribal members and makes its own decisions about what services to provide.
How have we done with this group of Native Americans?
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.
Maybe you can understand the angst of those on Medicare. You don’t have to make up a whole new healthcare system to save fraud and abuse funds in Medicare. You don’t have to change the entire healthcare system to cover 50 million uninsured (or whatever that number really is). You simply write legislation that addresses the issue. You write legislation that limits punitive damages so that doctors to have to pay large six-figure premiums for insurance. You write legislation that allows the person to decide on what type of coverage they want. America is diverse and a one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare is pure fantasy – a fantasy of the elite.
UPDATE
HotAir has picked up on the story…
We can’t possibly consider that a persons DNA heritage or even their culture has an implicit role in their health. We ALWAYS operate on the assertion that it is the health care delivery system that is at fault if their are any outliers with the numbers.
After all, nobody likes being called a racist.
So spend to oblivion and keep getting the same results.
spit
BTW, in Christ’s time the median age was estimated to be 25. By 1900 it was around 45, and today (with some 3rd world exceptions) around 75.
The largest single reason for increased human longevity is the development of disinfected, and/or monitored, public water supplies. Quit disinfecting or quit monitoring and your mortality will rise. That’s why what happened here in Susanville with that agency is so damned important. Because of the ‘troubles’ I have to wait a few more months to stir up the water again.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:14 pm