On American Indians & Health

Some of my professional work involves health inequities and American Indians, and rarely do I engage in such work without feeling like I must weep long and hard. 

There is too much too say, and blogging is such a poor medium for saying any of it, but this article surveys some of the key issues well.  Excerpts:

On some reservations, the oft-quoted refrain is "don't get sick after June," when the federal dollars run out. It's a sick joke, and a sad one, because it's sometimes true, especially on the poorest reservations where residents cannot afford health insurance. Officials say they have about half of what they need to operate, and patients know they must be dying or about to lose a limb to get serious care.

[ . . . ]

In Washington, a few lawmakers have tried to bring attention to the broken system as Congress attempts to improve health care for millions of other Americans.  But tightening budgets and the relatively small size of the American Indian population have worked against them.

"It is heartbreaking to imagine that our leaders in Washington do not care, so I must believe that they do not know," Joe Garcia, president of the National Congress of American Indians, said in his annual state of Indian nations address in February.

For some of the horrifying statistics regarding American Indian health, see here.  A better narrative for the critical importance of the social determinants of health barely exists, IMO (indeed, the superlative documentary Unnatural Causes spends quite some time discussing SDOH and American Indians).

But the travesty continues.  400 years, and we still cannot get our heads out of our collective you-know-whats.