Tribes Archives » Native Voice One

2020 Census in Trouble

September 17, 2018 By Bob Petersen

A troubled Census: Norm DeWeaver, James Tucker, and Liz Medicine Crow, talk about the challenges for Native people in the 2020 Census. (Photo by Mark Trahant)

American Indians and Alaska Natives are undercounted during the best of circumstances, like every time the U.S. conducts its once-a-decade count.

And this year? Trouble ahead.

This is Trahant Reports.

Yes, the 2020 Census is in trouble. It’s been in trouble for a while, said Norm DeWeaver, a consultant who has served on Census advisory boards, and has works with tribes to improve their count.

DeWeaver said Census troubles have been brewing for several years because Congress hasn’t wanted to spend enough money on the process. Congress has the idea that the Census should cost the same as it did a decade ago.

Native communities have a number of additional problems, ranging from the lack of rural addressing to a justified concern about answering questions from the government.

Yet the stakes are huge. One estimate says that every tribal citizen who is not counted costs their tribal government at least $3,000 in lost federal services.

Let’s put that in perspective. If a 10,000 member tribe is undercounted by 5 percent, that’s a loss of $1.5 million a year in federal funds, every year, for the next ten years. Many federal programs and block grants use Census numbers to determine the spending. The Census itself says the undercount of American Indians and Alaska Natives was 4.9 percent last time around. Most experts think the undercount was much higher.

The top 16 federal programs use Census data to determine funding models and block grants. James Tucker an attorney said: “If you are not counted, you do not exist for purposes of those federal grants and you are hurting your tribe. It’s as simple as that.”

In getting ready for 2020, there were supposed to be field tests at Standing Rock and at Colville, a way to test the methodology, but those were called off to save money. Yet it’s that practice, that improves the count.

Three U.S. Senators, Heidi Heitkamp, D-North Dakota; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota; said the Census was setting aside Native communities for “other priorities.” The three senators asked the bureau to come up with an action plan to be certain that there is an “accurate and cost effective process to count all American Indians and Alaska Natives.”

Another reason why the Census is so important is because it determines representation in the Congress and state legislatures. One Congressional district is about 700,000 people (except in states where there is one member for the entire state). Several states are hoping that population gains will mean an additional seat because of the 2020 count.

Elizabeth Medicine Crow of the First Alaskans Institute says Alaska Natives should have had at least two additional seats in the state legislature based on population.

So how do you fix the Census? The best answer would be more support from the Congress. But another answer is for tribes to do more of the work on their own — in a way bailing the federal government out.

I am Mark Trahant.

A Race of Medicaid Policy

April 23, 2018 By Bob Petersen

New Medicaid rules by the Trump administration undermine the treaty right to health care.

The Trump administration is supporting a major policy shift on Indian health programs which could result in a loss of millions of dollars and sabotage treaty rights.

This is Trahant Reports.

A story in Politico Sunday raised the issue, saying the Trump administration contends the tribes are a race rather than separate governments, and exempting them from Medicaid work rules would be illegal preferential treatment.

The new policy on Medicaid work requirements “does not honor the duty of the federal government to uphold the government-to-government relationship and recognize the political status enshrined in the Constitution, treaties, federal statutes, and other federal laws, said Jacqueline Pata, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians.

Medicaid has become a key funding stream for the Indian health system — especially in programs managed by tribes and non-profits. Medicaid is a state-federal partnership and public insurance. The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid eligibility, but the Supreme Court ruled that each state could decide whether or not to expand. Since the expansion of Medicaid some 237,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives in 19 states have become insured.

Officially Medicaid represents 13 percent of the Indian Health Service’s $6.1 billion budget (just under $800 million).

But even that number is misleading because it does not include money collected from third-party billing from tribal and non-profit organizations. In Alaska, for example, the entire Alaska Native health system is operated by tribes or tribal organizations and the state says 40 percent of its $1.8 billion Medicaid budget is spent on Alaska Native patients. That one state approaches the entire “budgeted” amount for Medicaid.

Those Medicaid (and all insurance) dollars are even more significant because by law they remain with local service units where the patient is treated (and the insurance is billed). And, unlike IHS funds, Medicaid is an entitlement. So if a person is eligible, the money follows.

Medicaid is the largest health insurance program in America, insuring one in five adults, and many with complex and long-term chronic care needs. The Trump administration and many state legislatures controlled by Republicans see Medicaid as a welfare program. While most Democrats view it simply as a public health insurance program.

Work rules are particularly challenging for Indian Country. Unlike other Medicaid programs, patients in the Indian health system will still be eligible to receive basic care. So stricter rules will mean fewer people will sign up for Medicaid and the Indian Health Service — already significantly underfunded — will have to pick up the extra costs from existing appropriations. That will result in less money, and fewer healthcare services, across the board.

I am Mark Trahant.

Tribal Responses to Paris Agreement

June 5, 2017 By Bob Petersen

Quinault Tribal President Fawn Sharp. The Quinault Nation must soon relocate a village because of climate change. (Photo by Larry Workman of Quinault Nation.)

A glacier on Mt. Anderson in the Olympic Mountain Range is gone because of climate change. Quinault President Fawn Sharp says that’s a clear sign that something is wrong. (Photo by Larry Workman of Quinault Nation.)

Tribes and climate change regulations

President Donald J. Trump announced last week that the United States was pulling out of the Paris agreement on climate change. That agreement includes every country in the world except Nicaragua, Syria … and now the United States.

The problems related to climate change are enormous — so the thinking goes — and the best course is a planetary response.

But nearly every government will be involved, including tribal governments.

This is Trahant Reports.

Shortly after the president’s announcement four Native Nations announced their plans to support the Paris agreement.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Quinault Indian Nation, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, and the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska said they will fill the vacuum and take aggressive action to protect the places we call home. The tribes said in a news release that climate change touches all aspect of life, from those who have no voice, the salmon, buffalo, seals and polar bears, to those who are suffering the impacts of water loss, shoreline erosion, drought and loss of homelands and waters.

Across North American tribes see climate change, or global warming, as real, human-caused, and something that is changing life right now.

The Quinault Nation is already experiencing an increase in ocean storm surges that requires the Lower Village of Taholah be relocated because of flooding and a potential catastrophe if there were to be a tsunami.

Tribal President Fawn Sharp said: “We are talking about human lives here, and regardless of who is in office the fact is the federal government is our trustee … This responsibility is constitutionally mandated, and it’s not something the President or anyone else can wriggle out of.”

Last year the Bureau of Indian Affairs awarded $8.7 million for tribal climate change projects for 63 tribes. But more than 200 tribes applied for the program and the Trump administration says it is ending all federal spending on climate change programs.

The president said that withdrawing from the agreement will support more energy resource development, including a revival of the coal industry. And a couple of weeks ago Vice President Mike Pence toured a working coal mine on the Crow Reservation promising new jobs. But that might be an impossible dream. The job losses in the coal industry have more to do with the low price of natural gas and changing global markets.

Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II says his tribe is actively moving away from fossil fuels and “we will continue to battle those who disregard our efforts to protect our water and lands.”

I am Mark Trahant.