Reznet

Tribal Advocate Worried About Stimulus Funds

By Kevin Abourezk

A longtime tribal advocate says he is concerned about how economic stimulus money targeted toward Indian health care is being distributed.

gaiashkibos, a Minnesota representative for the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes and former president of the National Congress of American Indians, said he recently attended the winter session of the National Congress of American Indians held earlier this month in Washington, D.C.

He said during one session an Indian Health Service official spoke about economic stimulus funds. The official said that $227 million of the $450 million in stimulus funds meant for Indian health care would go to construct just two new Indian Health Service hospitals in Phoenix and Alaska.

"It doesn't make sense to me that only two projects would get some economic stimulus money for construction," he said. "It should have been spread out through Indian Country."

He said he wasn't sure which tribes would benefit from the new hospitals. He said the remaining funds for Indian health care would be spent largely on information technology projects for tribal health and IHS facilities, as well as on competitive grants to tribes.

He said he worries the federal government also will have to direct significant funding to the new hospitals once they are built within coming budgets, money that might have otherwise been distributed to other tribes.

While he doesn't oppose any tribe getting health funding, he said the money shouldn't help just a handful of the 565 federally recognized tribes in the country. He said he spoke to the acting director of IHS, Robert McSwain, and other IHS officials about the issue while he was in Washington.

gaiashkibos, a member of the Lac Courte Orielles Band of Ojibwe, said McSwain told him Congress decides where the economic stimulus money goes, though he heard from House representatives that IHS, in fact, has final say on where Indian health care funds go.

He said another problem he sees with the stimulus funds meant for Indian health care is how federal agencies are prioritizing tribal projects. He said tribal projects that received federal Administration for Native Americans grants last year will be considered first for Indian health stimulus funds.

And with a 30-year backlog of new Indian health construction projects, many tribes that didn't receive ANA grants last year haven't bothered adding their names to the list of proposed new health construction projects.

"A lot of tribes didn't even try to get on the list because there's no point in doing that," he said. "I'm a little woried that money ain't going to reach everybody."

Kevin Abourezk's "Red Clout" columns are available for syndication. Please contact reznet to purchase republishing rights.

Kevin Abourezk, Rosebud Lakota, is a reporter and editor at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star. He writes reznet's "Red Clout" political blog and teaches reporting at the Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute. Abourezk was awarded a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism in 2006.

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