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Native America Calling: Tribes scramble to save critical healthcare funding
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Tribes scramble to save critical healthcare funding
President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2027 federal budget proposal includes a 75 percent funding cut to a diabetes prevention and treatment program specifically for Native Americans.
It also calls for up to $65 million in cuts to Indian Health Care facilities improvements. The Republican-controlled Congress has a mixed record on supporting Trump’s budget cuts to Native health care, but the proposals are cause for concern for tribes like Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico that is contending with costly repairs for its aging health clinic.
It also comes as the country faces the looming dropoff in Medicaid reimbursements that jeopardizes the future for hundreds of mainly rural hospitals across the country. Tune in to assess the threats to Native health care as we know it and other potential challenges that the ongoing shift in federal priorities is bringing to the surface.
Guests on Native America Calling
Liz Malerba (Mohegan), director of policy and legislative affairs for the United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund
A.C. Locklear (Lumbee), CEO of the National Indian Health Board
Jerilyn Church (Cheyenne River Lakota), president and CEO of the Great Plains Tribal Leader’s Health Board
Kurt Riley (Acoma Pueblo), chairman of the Acoma Pueblo Health Board and former governor of Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico
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