"As Sanford Health grows and expands around the country and the world, many who are familiar with South Dakota's most troubling health crisis hoped it would be addressed in some fashion.

It will.

That crisis? The quality and quantity of care on the state's Indian reservations.

Sanford will use a portion of the $400 million gift T. Denny Sanford gave the organization to explore the disparity between the quality of health care on South Dakota's Indian reservations and the rest of society.

The health system's outreach is both welcome and needed because the federal bureaucracy tasked with providing Native Americans with health care has proved its inadequacy time and time again.

The federal government owes members of recognized tribes adequate health care. The treaties our nation signed guarantee it.

But the Indian Health Service, the federal organization established to provide health care for Native Americans, has not been given the resources to do its job. South Dakota's reservations - poor and geographically remote - particularly are affected."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Health care money needed (The Sioux Falls Argus Leader 7/24)

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Newt Gingrich backs Indian health disparity efforts (7/22)