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.
The current process of health care reform came to a crescendo this week when both the House and Senate voted for a health care reform package. Though many have concentrated on portions of the bill such as the ban for denying service for pre-existing conditions and the individual mandate, there are other provisions in the bill that have gone largely unnoticed by the nation as a whole — such as the reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.
The IHCIA was first made law in 1976 and, after last being reauthorized in 1992, had expired in 2001.
The reauthorization, among other things, provides a 13 percent budget increase to the Indian Health Service.
Representative Martin Heinrich had pushed for the IHCIA to be included in health care reform efforts last year. Senator Tom Udall, who sits on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, has long been a supporter of reauthorizing the IHCIA.
“For too many years, our country’s First Americans have suffered needlessly because the federal government hasn’t been living up to its promise to them,” Udall said in a statement. “With passage of this reform, we take additional steps toward meeting our obligation by permanently reauthorizing the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, allowing us to better plan for Native health care needs now and in the future.”
Udall had a proposal included in the health care reform bill that would implement a program that could help prevent teen suicides among Native Americans.
“As a Senator, I co-sponsored this Act back in 2007 because I believe it is unacceptable that Native American communities still face gaping health care disparities,” President Barack Obama said in a statement after the vote. “Our responsibility to provide health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives derives from the nation-to-nation relationship between the federal and tribal governments. And today, with this bill, we have taken a critical step in fulfilling that responsibility by modernizing the Indian health care system and improving access to health care for American Indians and Alaska Natives.”
Rep. Ben Ray Luján, who represents many pueblos in the 3rd Congressional District, also lauded the inclusion of the IHCIA in the health care reform bill.
“Native Americans throughout my district have been asking for better access to quality, affordable health care, and the reauthorization of the Indian Health Care system is an important step toward this goal,” Luján said in a statement. “I’m encouraged that the Indian Health Care system is being reauthorized under this health insurance reform legislation, and I’m going to keep fighting to make sure that Indian Health Services are fully funded and improved to provide services for all of Indian Country.”
