Senate to act on Indian Health Service funding

The bill focuses on physician retention and recruitment, expansion of services, and American Indian enrollment in other federal programs.

By Dave Hansen, AMNews staff. Feb. 18, 2008.

Washington -- The Senate is poised to vote on new funding for the Indian Health Service that includes plans to combat a doctor shortage. But President Bush says he would veto it over cost and Medicaid documentation concerns.

The Indian Health Care Improvement Act of 2007 would authorize $35 billion from 2008 through 2017 for the IHS. The bill would establish doctor retention and recruitment bonuses of up to $25,000 and fund demonstration programs to recruit new physicians to the IHS. The agency's physician vacancy rate is currently 13%. The measure also would:

• Allocate $1 billion to build new health care facilities and $1 billion for new sanitation facilities.
• Establish a new program on domestic violence and sexual abuse in the American Indian community.
• Require the agency to offer cancer screenings beyond mammograms and eliminate the minimum age requirement of 35 on IHS-provided mammograms.
• Enroll more American Indians in Medicare, Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

Bill sponsor Sen. Byron Dorgan (D, N.D.) has made the improvement of Indian health care a major political goal. "I have in the past couple of weeks done some listening tours on Indian reservations, particularly in North Dakota, and we heard and saw many examples of deplorable conditions in Indian health care," said Dorgan in a Jan. 22 Senate speech. "It is true that some health care providers in the Indian Health Service are making very strong efforts to do the best they can, but they are overburdened, understaffed and underfunded."