In This Issue

On Tuesday, July 15, the Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs will hold a hearing on several measures affecting Indian Country, including H.R. 3229, the Indian Health Service Advance Appropriations Act.  As you may recall, advance appropriations would allow IHS to get its funding allocation a year ahead of time so that IHS, Tribal and urban facilities would know their budgets in advance. It would allow Indian health programs to effectively and efficiently manage budgets, coordinate care, and improve health quality outcomes for American Indians and Alaska Natives.  This change in the appropriations schedule will help the federal government meet its trust obligation to Tribes and bring parity to the federal health care system.

If you have any information on the effect of delayed appropriations or the negative impacts of the government shutdown that occurred at the start of FY 2014, please contact NIHB so that we can share this message with Congress.  This could include unexpected layoffs, borrowing additional funds to keep the health services going, or increased denials and deferred services.  You can send your information to NIHB's Director of Congressional Relations, Caitrin Shuy, at [email protected] or (202) 507-4085.

NIHB Chairperson Cathy Abramson will testify on behalf of the legislation.  You can learn more about the hearing here.

Please visit NIHB's legislative website for more information on advance appropriations and to learn how you can be involved. 

On Wednesday, July 9, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, which contains funding for the Indian Health Service (IHS) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), advanced its FY 2015 spending bill.  The measure was agreed to by voice vote and will be considered by the full Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, July 15.

The bill contains $4.6 billion for IHS which is an increase of $208 million for the Indian Health Service above FY 2014.  Though many of the details have not been released yet, the bill will provide an additional $51 million over FY 2014 for purchased/ referred care (formerly called contract health services).  Despite disagreement on other aspects of the bill, both sides of the aisle noted bipartisan support for the programs serving Indian Country.  Support for increases in funding for Indian programs represented the only area of agreement among Republicans and Democrats during consideration of the bill.  This is the fourth year in a row that the Committee has increased funding for IHS and BIA above the President's request.

You can read more about the bill here. 

The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet released its FY 2015 Interior Appropriations legislation.  Both the House and Senate will have to agree on final spending levels before the legislation can be finalized. 

Last week, Congressman Don Young (R-AK), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs introduced H.R. 5092, the Fair and Accountable IHS Recompense Act of 2014 or "FAIR Act."  If enacted, this legislation would require the Indian Health Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs to submit any contract support cost shortfall reports to Congress in a timely fashion, by removing any exemption to disclosure that might otherwise be available to the agencies under the Freedom of Information Act.  

The bill would also establish that the certified data contained in these reports is presumptively accurate for purposes of assessing damage claims arising from contract underpayments that are detailed in those reports

You can read the text of the legislation here. 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Indian Health Service and the Administration on Aging will hold a webinar at 2pm EDT on Wednesday, July 23, called: "Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau to learn more about older American Indians and Alaska Natives: Counts, Definitions, and Boundaries."  The webinar will:

1. Provide an overview of the American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) data available on the U.S. Census Bureau's Website.
2. Demonstrate how to search the website by both level of geography (AI/AN Home Land) and by Race/Ethnicity (AI/AN alone or AI/AN in combination with other races).
3. Discuss how Tribal data are defined and reported, as well as explain how the Tribal boundaries are identified and mapped.

You can learn more about how to participate in the webinar here.