Indians Could Get Better Healthcare in Prison

Buried in a survey released last month by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was the news that--more than any other racial group--American Indians took the biggest loss in the number of workers offered health insurance by employers. 86,000 Indians lost health coveragebetween '97 and '05 . That 5% drop is twice the rate that whites lost coverage, more than blacks (3.3%) and certainly more than Asians (.5%).

The U.S. has signed hundreds of treaties with various Indian nations promising to provide access to healthcare in exchange for their land. However, according to the 2004 report entitle "Broken Promises" by congress's U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

[the] nation’s lengthy history of failing to keep its promises to Native Americans includes the failure of Congress to provide the resources necessary to create and maintain an effective health care system for Native Americans.

Specifics are much worse:

Life expectancy for Indians is 5 years less than the rest of the U.S. population; suicide for Indians and Alaska Natives is 2 1/2 times higher than the national average (and ranked 3rd in the world); annual healthcare expenditures for Indians are less than half what America spends for federal prisoners' healthcare, 50% per capita what we spend on an average American, 33% what we spend on war veterans, and 7 times less than what we spend in Iraq in one day.

...oh yeah, and we took their land.