James Steele on healthcare reform and crocodile tears

August 31, 2009 in Healthcare, Montana
Tags: Fox News, IHS, Native Americans

by Jay Stevens

From Salish Kootenai chair James Steele’s excellent op-ed on health care reform:

My other interest relates to a recent visit by a Fox News reporter to an Indian reservation in South Dakota. He made the argument that if the IHS couldn’t provide decent health care there, how could the federal government do so nationally? This is the first I had heard of Fox News being concerned about the health of the American Indian people. The crocodile tears they shed were not only disingenuous but a continuation of their misleading attacks on anything Obama. They were comparing apples to oranges. On the reservations they visited, the federal government, through the IHS, is providing direct care with federally employed doctors and nurses.

If the debate in Washington was over the question of whether we should have nationalized health care then comparisons to the IHS might be interesting and educational. That is not what is on the table and Fox knows better. What is pending is legislation that would, among its other positive components, prohibit insurance companies from cancelling policies when their customers get sick. Isn’t that something we would all want to see?

Although Steele didn’t say it, I will: if we had nationalized health care for everyone, including Anglos, we wouldn’t be talking about a lack of funding…

Anyway, read the whole thing. Steel makes an excellent argument on why we need health care reform, and why we need it this session of Congress…

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