Northern Arapaho chairman outlines Indian country healthcare needs

By BRODIE FARQUHAR
Star-Tribune correspondent Saturday, March 10, 2007

The chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council compared the Sand Creek Massacre of Indians 143 years ago to the current state of health care for tribal people during a hearing Thursday to re-authorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

“I am an Arapaho,” said Brannan, “and sometimes I’m amazed that we have persevered.” Today’s Arapaho children are under attack again, he said, not from militia, but from emerging diseases and the scourge of methamphetamine addiction among family members, he said during a Senate Indian Affairs hearing from Washington that was broadcast over the Internet.

The massacre took place on {M3November 29, {M31864, when {M3Colorado Territory {M3militia attacked a village of {M3Cheyenne and {M3Arapaho encamped on the {M3eastern plains. Most of the 140 victims, said Brannan, were old men, women and children.

That's why it is critical, Brannan said, that the bill get reauthorized soon. The bill, which expired in 2000, provides federal health care programs for American Indians and Alaska Natives.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee blasted the Department of Justice for killing a reauthorization bill last year.

The bill was extended for one year, anticipating reauthorization. Since 2001, Congress has held 11 hearings on reauthorization, but no bill ever passed.

According to Indian Health Services statistics, American Indian and Alaskan Native populations have tuberculosis and alcoholism mortality rates six times higher than the rest of the U.S. population, and mortality rates in diabetes that are three times higher than the U.S. population.

Brannan abandoned his prepared remarks, instead showing photographs of three “little Arapaho angels, because they’re in heaven now. This is what I face every day n the death of little children and suffering.”

He referred to Dillon Whitecomb, who died of neuroblastoma cancer at the age of five, when advanced medical care came too late. Brannan showed a photograph of Marcela Hope Yellowbear, found hanging in a closet, dead of abuse from her meth-addicted parents. He also mentioned another young boy (Tyraine Goggles) beaten to death last November.

“We need to do something," Brannan said. "People are dying, suffering.” He noted that the child’s grandfather died of grief and was buried today.

“I’m not much in terms of statistics, because that doesn’t show the complete story,” Brannan said.

Earlier in the day, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., blasted a Department of Justice official over the release of a Department of Justice “white paper” last year to Republican members of the committee, effectively killing the reauthorization of the act.

"If you don't agree with us, don't come by in the midnight hour trying to kill the product with white papers going to one political caucus in the Senate," Dorgan told Frederick Breckner III, a deputy assistant general.

Breckner couldn’t say how the white paper ended up in the hands of the Republican Steering Committee -- whose members put holds on the bill.

Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyoming), the committee vice chairman, was also critical, expressing surprise that Breckner hadn’t even read the proposed bill that would reauthorize the act.

Last October, the National Indian Health Board wrote to both President Bush and Attorney General Albert Gonzales, asking them to retract the white paper, which the health board said “contains several inaccurate and erroneous claims.”

In a January Senate floor statement, Sen. Dorgan noted that there are fewer than 90 doctors for every 100,000 Indians compared to 230 doctors for every 100,000 people nationwide. “It is almost unbelievable to see what the Indian community faces with respect to the health care issues,” he said.

The Indian Health Service expenditure for each American Indian in 2005 was $2,130, said Dorgan, compared to $3,900 for health care for federal prisoners.

The House Natural Resources Committee will have a hearing next Wednesday. Both chambers are expected to introduce bills to reauthorize the act.