Letter to Senators Feinstein and Craig

Letter

Letter to Senators Feinstein and Craig

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and ten of her Senate colleagues yesterday sent a letter to the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, urging them to restore funding of the Urban Indian Health Programs. President Bush's FY2008 budget eliminates funding for the program - leaving 430,000 eligible Indian users in 41 cities, including 9 cities in California, without direct access to health care.

Following please find the Senators' letter to Senators Feinstein and Craig;

March 12, 2007

The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
Chair
Subcommittee on Interior
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Larry Craig
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Interior
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Chairman Feinstein and Ranking Member Craig:

We are writing to express our support for FY2008 funding of the Urban Indian Health Programs (UIHPs) and to request that funding be restored to the FY2006 enacted level of $32.7 million dollars. The President's budget proposal eliminates funding for 34 urban Indian non-profit organizations providing health care services at 41 sites throughout the U.S. for 430,000 eligible Indian users.

In 1976, Congress passed the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, PL. 94-437, to address poor health conditions in Indian Country. Title V of this law specifically targeted funding for the development of programs for American Indians and Alaska Natives living in urban areas. The 2000 census indicated that as many as 66 percent of all American Indians and Alaska Natives live in urban areas. Urban Indian populations are integral members of communities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Detroit, Chicago, Denver, Baltimore, Boston, Phoenix, Omaha, Fort Lauderdale, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Reno, Sioux Falls, Albuquerque, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Billings, among many others.

The Indian population suffers from diabetes, alcoholism, tuberculosis, influenza, and pneumonia at significantly higher rates than the general population. Urban primary care clinics and outreach programs provide culturally accessible, affordable, and accountable health services to our nation's large off-reservation Indian population. UIHPs participate in a wide range of activities, including outreach and referral services, ambulatory health care, health assessment, health promotion, disease prevention, child abuse prevention, and immunization services.

The Indian Health Service estimates that average funding in previous budget years has been 22 percent of the projected need for this program, and that eighteen additional cities have an urban Indian population large enough to support a UIHP. UIHPs are all operating at maximum capacity, servicing over 2 million visits per year.

We are committed to fiscal responsibility and understand that restraints on funding are a reality of the current budgetary climate - eliminating an already under funded program that hundreds of thousands of Americans have depended on since 1976 is not a choice we can support. Without access to health care centers, we fear that many urban Indian families will go without these important services. It is irresponsible to deny health care access to such a large and underserved population.

We urge you to restore funding for UIHPs to the FY2006 budget level of $32.7 million dollars, and thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Senator Barbara Boxer
Senator John Thune
Senator Maria Cantwell
Senator John Kerry
Senator Debbie Stabenow
Senator Russell Feingold
Senator Jeff Bingaman
Senator Ken Salazar
Senator Max Baucus
Senator Jon Tester
Senator Lisa Murkowski

Source