Will president-elect Barack Obama will use his power to help pass the Indian Health Care Improvement Act?

President Bush opposed reauthorization of the bill for several years. After members of Congress criticized his administration, Senate Republicans blocked its passage.

With Democrats in control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, advocates hope the situation changes next year. "The president sets the tone," Jacqueline Johnson Pata, the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, told the Associated Press.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota), the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said Obama will be "a much more aggressive advocate" for the bill.

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