Mark Trahant is a writer, speaker and Twitter poet. He is a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and lives in Fort Hall, Idaho. Trahant’s new book, “The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars,” is the story of Sen. Henry Jackson and Forrest Gerard.

The election is over. Now what? What are the next steps when it comes to health care reform? Just what did the people say Nov. 2?

As you would expect there is no agreed answers. Republicans say this election was about health care. Tea party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S. C., said on NBC’s Meet the Press this weekend. “We have to stop the funding of Obamacare and over the next two years show the American people what the real options are to improve the system we have now.”

But President Barack Obama, in his news conference said, “I think we’d be misreading the election if we thought that the American people want to see us for the next two years relitigate arguments that we had over the last two years.”

The polls are interesting. The Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed the surveys. “Over the course of the past month, at least eight well-respected polls have asked Americans whether they support the idea of repealing health reform, and” Kaiser reports, “responses have been all over the map, ranging from a high of 51 percent in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll to a low of 26 percent in our September Kaiser Health Tracking survey. Why the wide range? After a close look at the data collected below, our take is that question wording is driving the differences. At the same time, recent polling suggests that for at least some Americans, a vote for repeal means a vote to eliminate certain provisions of the health reform law while also keeping many of its benefits, rather than representing a desire to overturn the law completely.”

But the political divide remains stark. So we are going to (as the president puts it) relitigate the health care law.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: bufalo post, Health care, Health care reform, indian health care impro, Indian Health Care Improvement Act, Indian Health Service, indian health system, Kaiser Family Foundation, Mark Trahant, President Barack Obama, Tea Party

Mark Trahant has spent the past year as a Kaiser Media Fellow examining the Indian Health Service and its relevance to the national health care reform debate. He is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and writes from Fort Hall, Idaho. Comment at www.marktrahant.com. His new book is “The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars,” the story of Sen. Henry Jackson and Forrest Gerard.

What will the Indian health system look like a decade from now?

That’s an impossible question to answer. There is the potential of a court ruling striking down at least part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. And, there is always the possibility of Congress will rewrite the law (I view this as remote because there would have to be a Super Majority to enact something else.)

But in the meantime there is a new foundation already under construction. The building that will rest on that structure will not be the same as the one in place now.

Let’s start with the patient. Right now, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly half of all American Indians and Alaska Natives are either uninsured or rely solely on the Indian Health Service. But health care reform changes that. Big time. Beginning in four years, hundreds of thousands of people will become eligible for insurance through government programs (such as Medicaid) because of new income rules. This insurance can be used to pay for services at Indian health system facilities – or at competing health care centers. (Think about how many private walk-in clinics promise no waiting.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Health care reform, Indian Health Service, Kaiser Family Foundation, Mark Trahant, Medicaid, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Mark Trahant is a Kaiser Media Fellow examining the Indian Health Service and its relevance to the national health care reform debate. He is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Comment here.

It’s amazing how fast a year goes by. Last May, when I met with the selection committee for the Kaiser Media Fellowship, I outlined my project. Several folks on the committee said I shouldn’t wait until fall to begin. The health care reform debate might be over by then – or so we thought.

Of course it didn’t work out that way. My year as a Kaiser Fellow has been amazing because it’s paralleled so much of the legislative debate. I started writing columns (or blog posts, depending on your point of view) on July 6, 2009.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010. And, now a different kind of debate begins. Federal agencies, primarily at the Department of Health and Human Services and Treasury are writing regulations to implement the new law. There will be fights over words like “quality” or how we define and measure success.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Congress, Consumer Price Index, Gwen Florio, Health care reform, Kaiser Family Foundation, Kaiser Media Fellowship, Mark Trahant, Medicare, Medicare Part D, Mitch McConnell, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Mark Trahant is a Kaiser Media Fellow examining the Indian Health Service and its relevance to the national health care reform debate. He is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Comment here.

We’re still confused about the new health care insurance law. But there is this twist: More of us are starting to figure out what the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act means to our families.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports in a May poll: “Confusion over the new health reform law declined but remains widespread, with 44 percent of the public saying they were confused in May, compared to 55 percent in April. Moreover, more than a third of Americans (35 percent) say they do not understand what the impact of the law will be on themselves and their families, while 61 percent report feeling they do understand what that impact will be.”

It’s also interesting to see how we are learning about this new law. “More than half report having gotten information from friends and family (68 percent), or from cable (63 percent) or broadcast news programs (55 percent). Further breaking down those getting health reform information from cable news, 25 percent of Americans indicated their main cable source on this topic was FOX News, 22 percent named CNN and 6 percent MSNBC. In fact, cable news still tops the list of the public’s “most important” sources of news about the new law, with 30 percent saying they rely on that source more than any other.”

If cable news is teaching America about health care reform, well, let’s just say, there will be a lot more to learn later.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: CNN, Fox News, Gwen Florio, Heatlh care reform, Indian Health Service, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Kaiser Family Foundation, MSNBC, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, U.S. House of Representatives

Mark Trahant is a Kaiser Media Fellow examining the Indian Health Service and its relevance to the national health care reform debate. He is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Comment here.

DETROIT – It’s hard to communicate the failure of public policy in this great American city (especially in a few hundred words). A drive around town highlights the consequences from decades of neglect: Abandoned and burned out homes, office buildings as ruins (and dangerous playgrounds), near-permanent unemployment, and thousands of empty lots capped with mounds. These mounds are burial sites of sorts because when a building was destroyed the rubble was left in a pile until time and grass shaped each into a small hill.

Yet the geography of despair includes many seeds of hope.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: American Indian Health and Family Services, buffalo post, Cheyenne River Sioux, Community Health Awareness Group, Detroit, Detroit Archdiocese, Earthworks Urban Farm, Federally Qualified Health Center, Gwen Florio, Health care reform, Henry Ford, HIV, Indian Country, Indian Health Care Improvement Act, Indian Health Service, Kaiser Family Foundation, Mark Trahant, Minnecoujou Lakota, Native American news, The Heidelberg Project