I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
A bill which would extend the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (IHCIA) passed the Senate Indian Affairs Committee yesterday and now will head to the Senate floor. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., an original cosponsor of the bill, sits on the Indian Affairs Committee.
Marissa Padilla, a spokeswoman for Udall, says Udall “has also made it a top priority to make sure that the health reform the Congress is working on now includes the long-overdue IHS reauthorization. In addition, today he helped file an amendment to the health reform package that would permanently reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.”
Udall lists this bill as one of his priorities for Indian country on his Senate Web site.
The bill, S.1790, is sponsored by Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and a similar piece of legislation has already passed the House as part of that body’s version of the health care reform bill.
When announcing the bill, Dorgan said it would “modernize Indian health care programs and provide innovative ways to increase access to health care services for millions of American Indian families.”
Dorgan said the bill would do the following:
• Permanently re-authorize all current Indian health care programs.
• Authorize programs to increase the recruitment and retention of health care professionals, such as updates to the scholarship program, demonstration programs which promote new, innovative models of health care, to improve access to health care for Indians and Alaska Natives.
• Authorize long-term care, including home health care, assisted living, and community based care. Current law provides for none of these forms of long-term care.
• Establish mental and behavioral health programs beyond alcohol and substance abuse, such as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, and child sexual abuse and domestic violence prevention programs.
• Establish demonstration projects that provide incentives to use innovative facility construction methods, such as modular component construction and mobile health stations, to save money and improve access to health care services.
• Require that the IHS budget account for medical inflation rates and population growth, in order to combat the dramatic underfunding of the Indian health system.
The New York Times quoted Dorgan this week saying there is currently “full-scale health care rationing going on on Indian reservations.”
Congressman Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., asked that the bill be included in the House version of health care reform legislation.
According to the U.S. Census, nearly 10 percent of the New Mexico population was American Indian as of 2008.
