Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has repeatedly promised to protect the health services for Indians and to improve it or now during his hearing of the Senate of Senate or a trip to Arizona in April, where he met tribal leaders.
In some respects he has that.
When fired the Indian Health Service – the federal agency that is responsible for providing health care to Indians and residents of Alaska – Kennedy’s Department the promotions withdrew hours later.
In April, during a visit to the Navajo Nation in Arizona, Kennedy told KFF Health News that he ensured that wider cuts on the budget and dismissed at HHS have no influence on the Indian communities.
But tribal leaders expressed skepticism. They said they have already seen cases of the radical reorganization at federal health authorities. Data for public health is incomplete and the communication of agencies has become less reliable. Tribes have also lost at least $ 6 million in subsidies from other HHS agencies, According to a letter The National Indian Health Board sent to Kennedy in May.
“There may be a misconception in part of the administration that the Indian country is only affected by changes in the Indian Health Service,” said Liz Malerba, a tribal policy expert and citizen of the Mohegan -stem. “That’s just not true.”
Indians are confronted with higher percentages of chronic diseases and die younger than other populations. Those inequalities arise from centuries of systemic discrimination. The Indian Health Service is chronically under -financed and understaffed, leading to gaps in healthcare.
Janet Alkire, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux -Stame in the Dakotas, said During a hearing of May That the canceled subsidies paid for health workers, vaccinations, data dernization and other public health efforts.
Other programs – including those aimed at Indian youth interested in science and medicine And Increasing access to healthy food – were cut after the government said that they violate the prohibition of the Trump government on ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’.
Indigenous leaders and organizations have requested tribal consultationA legal process that is required when federal agencies consider changes that would influence tribal countries. Alkire and other tribal leaders of the hearing of the Senate Committee said that federal officials had not responded.
“This is not just a moral question of what we owe indigenous people,” said Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) during the hearing. “It’s also a matter of the law.”
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