Advertise:   ads@blueearthmarketing.com   712.224.5420

Opinion
Harjo: Urban Indian health funding still at risk


"When President Bush sent Congress his proposed budget for fiscal year 2007 at the beginning of this calendar year, the urban Indian health program was targeted for elimination. The administration began taking steps to close the 34 health centers all over the country.

In response to a unified Indian lobby effort to save the program, the House restored $32.7 million for the health centers in May. The final vote on the umbrella bill, the Interior Appropriation Act, was 293 to 128.

In case anyone missed the point, the House report which accompanied the bill stated that ''the proposal to eliminate this program is rejected.''

The Senate Appropriations Committee concurred in June, adding report language that leaves nothing to the imagination

The administration has the House and Senate bills and reports, and there can be no mistaking what Congress intended to this point. But that intention is not yet law.

Administrators intent on mischief could make some for the program, but few would be so foolish as to poke a stick at appropriators who control their budget.

While waiting for definitive action, the people who staff the urban Indian health centers, as well as the Indian patients who depend on them, would become increasingly apprehensive about the program's future."

Get the Story:
Suzan Shown Harjo: Recess is over, but the games continue (Indian Country Today 9/7)

Related Stories:
Harjo: Sen. 'Macaca' Allen no stranger to racial gaffes (8/31)
Harjo: Ross Swimmer still taking care of Indians (08/21)
Harjo: Good people being taken out by snakes in DC (07/21)
Harjo: Ann Coulter's failed supermodel career (06/23)
Parents, museum visit stirred Harjo's passions (6/16)
Harjo: Mascots preferred over real Indian people (6/12)
Harjo: Poarch Creeks worked against Native people (6/5)
Harjo: Indians forced to pay price for Abramoff (04/28)
Suzan Harjo: Girl-empowerment for Indian Country (04/15)
Harjo: Scientists study Ancient One but learn nothing (03/17)
Harjo: NY Times story on drugs accurate but untrue (02/27)
Harjo: Pseudo-Indians should pay for identify theft (02/10)
Harjo: Indian art world suffered severe losses (01/20)
Harjo: The Mantle of Shame Awards for 2005 (1/4)
Harjo: Indian people have no word for 'mascot' (12/9)
Harjo: My photo album of Vine Deloria Jr. (11/24)
Harjo: 'Scooter' Libby scandal and Rosa Parks (11/11)
Harjo: White man's words trump Native views (10/21)
Harjo: Native nations stand up to 'Fighting Sioux' (10/03)
Harjo: Indian people know what it's like to be uprooted (9/23)
Harjo: We can prove that Native people ate corn (08/26)
Harjo: Hanging onto mascots, toys of racism (08/12)
Harjo: Elite group wants control over dead Indians (08/05)
Harjo: O'Connor trampled on Native religious rights (07/08)
Harjo: Ruling expected any day on use of R-word (06/17)
Harjo: NCAA should ban all 'Native' imagery (05/27)
Harjo: Native people, like 'extinct' bird, survive (05/13)
Harjo: Native women aren't safe in Indian Country (04/29)
Harjo: Characteristics of the non-Indian Indians (04/08)
Churchill tells Suzan Shown Harjo: Kiss my --- (02/17)
Suzan Shown Harjo: Churchill went 'tribe-shopping' (2/11)
Anti-fry bread column stirs Indian Country passions (02/07)
Harjo: Eliminate fry bread and other 'Indian' foods (01/21)
Harjo: The 'good' Indians versus the 'hostiles' (12/17)
Harjo: Pine Ridge election about character (10/29)
Harjo: Anderson harassed Indian reporter over BIA death (07/02)