LUMMI – Tulalip Heritage Hawks ended their regular season with a game against rival Lummi Nation Blackhawks on Thursday, January 29. The Hawks, who made the trek to Lummi for the game, were banking on a win before entering district games.
Going into the second quarter the Hawks tied the game at 17-17 but quickly lost the lead going into halftime. Unable to secure a lead over Lummi the Hawks took a loss with a final score of 45-58, leaving them as the second place Northwest 1B league leader.
Both teams will enter the 1B league 2015 District 1 Boys Basketball Tournament on February 7, played at Mount Vernon Christian High School.
WALLULA, Wash. — KEPR investigating into reports of human remains being found just north of Wallula Junction.
A 14 year old and his father were hunting near the river when the came across a skeleton with a hole in the skull.
“I was about 100 yards in front of him, I just walked right up on it,” said 14 year old Mitchell Jackson.
He didn’t snag any geese on his hunting trip this weekend, but he did make a chilling discovery.
“I just see this white thing on the ground and I go walking closer to it. It looked like skull to me and I waited until my dad caught up to me and I said, ‘Dad, I think I found a human skull,” he said.
And he was right.
A skull, jaw bone, vertebrae, and rib cage just sticking out of the ground near their hunting spot along the river near Wallula. Mitchell’s father called the Walla Walla County Sheriff’s Office who initially thought they could be looking at a homicide. But once the coroner and an archaeologist could took a closer look, they squashed that theory.
The land where they found the remains just north of Wallula Junction is all owned by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. So when they got the call, they knew they had a full plate.
We asked an archaeologist how old he might think the bones are.
“You know, they’re older than ten years old. I can’t tell you if they’re older than 100, 200, years old. They’ve definitely been there for quite a long time.”
Fish and Wildlife archaeologist Dale Earl is tasked with identifying and dating the remains which are now under lock and key at the McNary office in Burbank. He says the body could have been placed where the skeleton was found, or been carried by the river.
They are currently in talks with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation to see if it could be one of their ancestors.
While that could be the story, could we possibly be looking ground breaking find?
Reporter: “What are the odds of this being the next Kennewick Man?” Earl: “Very very remote.”
Fish and Wildlife will team up with an anthropologist to date the bones. Archaeologists say the dating process will take several weeks if not longer.
Police opened an investigation Tuesday into a Saturday night incident in which a group of Native American students was reportedly subjected to beer baths and racial slurs while attending a Rapid City Rush hockey game.
Rapid City Police Lt. Mark Eisenbraun said his department had just opened an investigation into the matter Tuesday afternoon.
“It was just reported to me that we have had parents of the kids call in and give us information that will allow us to investigate this incident further,” Eisenbraun said. “So we have opened an investigation, and we thank the public for reporting criminal activity when they see it.”
Also Tuesday, a witness stepped forward with more information about the incident.
Andy Hollander, of Sturgis, a season ticket holder and longtime former supervisor of officials for USA Hockey, said he was 10 to 15 seats away from the American Horse School group from Allen, which had a total of 65 tickets for students and their chaperones. Hollander said the student group was one of the best-behaved he has seen in his years of attending games.
Hollander said he was too far away to hear what happened, but he saw two men in the skybox above the students “who seemed to be taking real pleasure in continuing the confrontation” with an adult member of the school group.
The group left before the game ended, leaving three empty rows. Hollander said the men in the skybox “seemed to gloat over what they had accomplished in chasing the student group from the game” and handed out a number of beers to other fans in what Hollander said appeared to be a “celebration.” He said several other people in the skybox “seemed extremely uncomfortable with what was going on.”
The group left before the end of the third period of a game that went into overtime and a shootout, with the Rush eventually losing to the Wichita Thunder 4-3.
“It was a very exciting finish, and they missed it,” Hollander said.
He hopes the men in the skybox will apologize publicly to the kids and be barred from attending future events at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, and he hopes the students will be brought back for another game and given a few perks.
Meanwhile, the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center’s director and the president of Eagle Sales said Tuesday they were devastated by the episode.
“Having been in the industry for 25 years, I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Craig Baltzer, executive director of the civic center. “I am amazed by what kind of idiots there are in the world.”
Eagle Sales of the Black Hills President Tom Helland called the incident “incredibly horrible.” Helland, a beer distributor, rents the arena suite from which one person, and possibly as many as three others, slung beer and racial epithets at the group of fourth- through eighth-graders from the school’s 21st Century Club, who were seated below.
“I feel terrible about it,” Helland said. “Unfortunately, we can’t change what happened. From what I gathered, it was one individual who did most of the inappropriate behavior. I don’t condone it and, if it was one of my employees, they’d no longer be employed.”
Helland, who was not at the Rush game, said one of his employees was in attendance, but neither that employee nor most of the other 20 people in the suite were aware of the incident. He said he had not yet been able to identify the offending individuals.
“We are cooperating with authorities, and we are working to get to the bottom of it,” Helland said. “I apologized to those children, those students who worked so hard to get to go to the game. And, it’s been devastating to me personally. I’m not used to getting beat up in social media. I even feel bad for the team, which had nothing to do with it whatsoever.”
Eisenbraun said it was too early to know what tack the probe would take. Earlier Tuesday, the police spokesman noted that Chief Karl Jegeris had been in conversations with civic center staff about the incident.
The episode comes just weeks before Rapid City voters go to the polls March 10 to decide the fate of the proposed $180 million expansion of the civic center. At a Tuesday morning coffee klatch at which the planned expansion was discussed, Payu Harris told attendees the incident made supporting the proposal problematic.
“I’m hearing words like ‘boycott,’” Harris said. “How do I go back (to other Native Americans) with that positive message” that they should vote for the civic center expansion?
Baltzer said the incident would undoubtedly lead to enhanced security at the civic center as well as additional training for staff.
Asked if the entire incident could be attributed to over-consumption of alcohol, Baltzer said he had no way of knowing if drinking contributed to such behavior.
“It’s hard to catch everything when there are 5,000 people in attendance,” he said, sighing. “I think it is possible they were mental midgets with the added courage of drinking, but I don’t know. I did get a report they were drinking beer, but I don’t know their stage of drunkenness.
“We do refuse admittance to people who are clearly too intoxicated. We do cut people off just like a bar, or we eject them, or there can be further action,” Baltzer added.
Calls seeking comment from American Horse School Principal Jodi Richards, one of the student chaperones at Saturday night’s game, were not immediately returned Tuesday.
TOPPENISH, Wash. — Fifteen people, including an interim manager and former manager, are facing federal charges for allegedly stealing $179,000 worth of scholarships from the Yakama Nation Higher Education Program.
The suspects were awarded a total of 67 checks ranging from $1,000 to $6,500 for studies at colleges and universities that reported the students had never enrolled or completed coursework, according to the indictments handed down in U.S. District Court in Yakima.
According to investigators, the fraudulent scholarship applications were submitted between 2009 and 2012.
The tribe’s higher education program administered both federal Bureau of Indian Affairs student assistance funding and the tribe’s own scholarship program. Estimates of how much money was available for scholarships through the program each year was not available Wednesday.
Calls to the Yakama Nation Tribal Council requesting comment were not returned.
FBI agents and Yakama Nation police arrested 11 people on Tuesday, said Ayn Dietrich, an FBI spokeswoman in Seattle. They made court appearances in Yakima on Tuesday.
Those not arrested were expected to report to court this week, Dietrich said.
Among those indicted were Priscilla Marie Gardee, interim manager of the program, and Delford Neaman, former manager. Also indicted were Phillip Stevens, Anthony Linn Gardee, Sophia Leta Gardee, Tamera Jean Gardee, Latonia Wheeler, Cynthia A. Arthur, Crystal L. Miller, Arnetta Amy Blodgett, Brycene Allen Neaman, Gilbert Onepennee, Odessa P. Johnson, Phillip A. Burdeau Sr. and Susan Aleck.
According to program documentation from 2013, scholarship funding was to go to Yakama students attending a college or university full time. Awards were granted at the rate of $1,500 per academic year for undergraduate students and $3,000 a year for graduate students. Students who withdrew from school were required to refund their scholarships.
TULALIP – Heritage Lady Hawks hosted their last home game of the season tonight with a game against Highland Christian Knights at the Francy J. Sheldon Memorial Gymnasium.
The Lady Hawks built a strong lead going into halftime with a score of 17-15, and maintained a slim two-point lead going into the fourth. The Knights kicked up their defensive to take a 5-point lead and end the game, 30-25.
Shannon McDaniel, executive director of tribal operations, has made a simple and straightforward request on behalf of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He wants all 565 federally recognized tribes exempted from the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).
Or, to put it in his own words and more specifically, McDaniel wants the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to review the produce rule “expressly to exempt tribal nations, their lands, and their members from application of the proposed rule.”
“Alternatively,” McDaniel said, “we strongly urge FDA to schedule formal consultations with tribal nations and, until such consultation is complete, we urge FDA from enforcing the final rule on tribal nationals, their lands, and their people.”
The Choctaw Nation, which, since the “Trail of Tears” in 1830, has been located in southeastern Oklahoma, is a longtime fruit and vegetable producer. It is one of a dozen or so Tribal Nations that, during the past two years, has pressured FDA and the White House for meaningful consultation over FSMA implementation.
American Indian tribes are sovereign nations, and their authority stems from treaties, acts of Congress, and presidential authorities. President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order (EO) 13175 in 2000, which was reaffirmed by President Obama in 2009, and requires federal agencies to consult with tribes when promulgating rules and regulations impacting their reservations.
To comply with EO 13175, FDA’s parent agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has its own plan to consult, saying that the tribes will be consulted “to the extent practicable and permitted by law … .”
This is not the first time tribal leaders have raised their request for “meaningful consultation.” And, it’s not as if FDA has not been listening.
In November 2013, FDA conducted a two-hour webinar with the tribes on the FSMA rule package. Afterward, Raymond Foxworth of the First Nations Development Institute told Food Safety News that the webinars were small steps and that there was a long way to go for “meaningful consultation.”
Then, last April, FDA met with tribal leaders for a half-day consultation session in New Mexico. The discussion centered on the produce rule, the Environmental Impact Statement for the produce rule, and questions and other feedback on all seven FSMA rules. A side meeting was held with the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, AZ.
But, as the recent Choctaw letter indicates, those meetings, along with all the normal public input opportunities, are still considered inadequate by tribal leaders. They say that FDA, which is also under federal court orders for completing the rules, opted not to follow the established Tribal Consultation Policy and did not engage the tribes during the development stage for the rules.
SEATTLE — Nearly two decades after the ancient skeleton called Kennewick Man was discovered on the banks of the Columbia River, the mystery of his origins appears to be nearing resolution.
Genetic analysis is still under way in Denmark, but documents obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act say preliminary results point to a Native American heritage.
The researchers performing the DNA analysis “feel that Kennewick has normal, standard Native American genetics,” according to a 2013 email to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for the care and management of the bones. “At present there is no indication he has a different origin than North American Native American.”
If that conclusion holds up, it would be a dramatic end to a debate that polarized the field of anthropology and set off a legal battle between scientists who sought to study the 9,500-year-old skeleton and Northwest tribes that sought to rebury it as an honored ancestor.
In response to The Seattle Times’ records request, geochemist Thomas Stafford Jr., who is involved in the DNA analysis, cautioned that the early conclusions could “change to some degree” with more detailed analysis. The results of those studies are expected to be published soon in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Stafford and Danish geneticist Eske Willerslev, who is leading the project at the University of Copenhagen, declined to discuss the work until then.
But other experts said deeper genetic sequencing is unlikely to overturn the basic determination that Kennewick Man’s closest relatives are Native Americans.
The result comes as no surprise to scientists who study the genetics of ancient people, said Brian Kemp, a molecular anthropologist at Washington State University. DNA has been recovered from only a handful of so-called Paleoamericans — those whose remains are older than 9,000 years — but almost all of them have shown strong genetic ties with modern Native Americans, he pointed out.
“This should settle the debate about Kennewick,” Kemp said.
Establishing a Native American pedigree for Kennewick Man would also add to growing evidence that ancestors of the New World’s indigenous people originated in Siberia and migrated across a land mass that spanned the Bering Strait during the last ice age. And it would undermine alternative theories that some early migrants arrived from Southeast Asia or even Europe.
It’s not clear, though, whether the upcoming study will provide tribes the legal ammunition they need to reclaim what they call “The Ancient One.”
Controversy flared over the skeleton almost from the moment in 1996 when two students stumbled across human bones near the Southeastern Washington town of Kennewick.
Bothell archaeologist James Chatters, the first scientist to examine the skeleton, said the skull looked “Caucasoid,” not Native American. A facial reconstruction that bore a striking resemblance to Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (actor Patrick Stewart) of the television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” further inflamed members of local tribes, who argued that the remains were rightfully theirs under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
After eight years of litigation, a federal appeals court ruled in 2004 that Kennewick Man’s extreme age made it impossible to establish a clear link to any existing Northwest tribes.
A scientific team led by Douglas Owsley, a physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution, won the right to study the skeleton, which is stored at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
The results, including a new facial reconstruction based on more thorough analysis of the skull, were published last year in a 669-page book. Owsley, the lead author, told Northwest tribal members in 2012 that he remains convinced Kennewick Man was not Native American.
In an interview last week, Owsley explained that he bases that conclusion on the shape of the skull, which doesn’t look anything like the skulls of modern Native Americans. Its narrow brain case and prominent forehead more closely resemble Japan’s earliest inhabitants and people whose genetic roots are in Southeast Asia, not Siberia and other parts of Northeast Asia.
“His origins are going to go back to coastal Asia,” Owsley said.
That wouldn’t preclude the possibility of some distant, shared ancestry with Native Americans, he added. But chemical analysis of the bones suggests Kennewick Man ate a lot of marine mammals, which means he probably spent most of his life along the coast of Alaska or British Columbia, not on the Columbia Plateau where his bones were discovered, Owsley said.
With its ability to settle questions about lineage, DNA analysis has become one of the most powerful tools for the study of the ancient world, said Peter Lape, curator of archaeology at the Burke Museum.
“This is yet another case where genetics are really revolutionizing the way we think about ancestry and calling into question older scientific methods that rely on looking at the shape of bones,” he said.
Nevertheless, the majority of visitors he encounters at the museum still have the impression that Kennewick Man is caucasian.
“That initial media storm from 1996 just kind of stuck,” Lape said.
Chatters, the man who kicked up that storm, changed his mind after studying the 13,000-year-old skeleton of a young girl discovered in an underwater cave in Mexico. As with Kennewick Man and other remains of the earliest prehistoric Americans, the shape of the girl’s skull was unusual. But DNA analysis proved that she shared a common ancestry with modern Native Americans, originating with the people who migrated into the land mass called Beringia beginning about 15,000 years ago.
“The result from Kennewick is the same one we’re getting from the other early individuals,” Chatters said. “It’s what I expected.”
Attempts to extract DNA from Kennewick Man’s bones in the late 1990s failed. But the technology has advanced so much since then that researchers recently succeeded in analyzing the genome of a 130,000-year-old Neanderthal from a single toe bone.
Willerslev’s Danish lab is a world leader in ancient DNA analysis. Last year, he and his colleagues reported the genome of the so-called Anzick boy, an infant buried 12,600 years ago in Montana. He, too, was a direct ancestor of modern Native Americans and a descendant of people from Beringia.
Until details of the Kennewick analysis are published, there’s no way to know what other relationships his genes will reveal, Kemp said. It may never be possible to link him to specific tribes, partly because so few Native Americans in the United States have had their genomes sequenced for comparison.
“My feeling is once you get the Kennewick genome, there are going to be people lining up to find out if they’re related to him,” he said.
Members of Northwest tribes visit the Burke Museum regularly to pay their respects to The Ancient One, and continue to press for his reburial.
Willerslev met with tribal representatives in Montana before analyzing the Anzick boy’s DNA. Last summer, after those studies were done, he joined tribal members — including several Northwest veterans of the Kennewick Man wars — as they reinterred the boy’s bones on a sagebrush-covered slope near the spot where he was discovered.
Riverton, Wyoming, looks like an All-American boomtown, fronted along a busy strip of hotels and fast food joints with steady traffic from industry trucks and pickups. But the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes are arguing that Riverton is part of the Wind River Indian Reservation – and the Environmental Protection Agency agrees. That determination, now before the courts, could allow tribes to have greater involvement in energy development rules and also strike a significant win for tribes after centuries of losing ground.
A 1905 Congressional act opened nearly 1 million acres of Wind River reservation lands in central Wyoming for non-Indian homesteaders, miners and new towns. Later acts restored much of that area as part of the reservation, but 171,000 acres, including Riverton, were never officially returned to the tribes. Despite the developments, the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone, who share the reservation, say the lands have always remained under tribal ownership.
The matter boiled over in 2008 after the Wind River tribes applied to the EPA for “treatment as a state” designation under the Clean Air Act, which would allow them to implement and manage air-quality programs on their shared reservation. In a region heavily reliant on the production from thousands of oil and gas wells, the additional oversight – and a change in jurisdiction – poses some uncertainty for the industry.
The EPA approved the tribes’ request in late 2013 and, as part of the proceedings, reviewed the reservation’s boundaries. After studying historical records, the EPA announced that the disputed lands are still part of the Wind River reservation.
“It’s a big deal for the Wind River tribes and for Wyoming because jurisdiction is what sovereign governments are all about,” says Debra Donahue, professor at University of Wyoming College of Law. “It’s important for the tribes just as an affirmation that the lands are still within the reservation and they are the primary sovereigns within that territory.”
The state of Wyoming, the Wyoming Farm Bureau, and Devon Energy, one of the largest oil and gas companies in the country, all sued EPA over the outcome and asked the Tenth Circuit Appeals Court to review the decision. This month, ten other states filed an amicus brief, asking the court to fully review EPA’s boundary determination, and questioning why the agency was wading into Indian law and boundary disputes.
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, R, has said the EPA’s determination sets a “dangerous precedent” for administrative agency intervention in tribal boundary and state sovereignty issues. Mead has also battled the EPA – and complained of other dangerous precedents – over President Obama’s proposed stricter rules and carbon controls for coal-fired power plants, and in defense of the state’s own plan to reduce power-plant haze and improve air quality in national parks and wilderness areas, which is more lax than federal plans. Wyoming won backing from the courts on the latter issue last September, allowing coal plants to avoid installing new pollution controls.
If the appeals court upholds the EPA’s boundary designations, the state can still tax local citizens and businesses in the Riverton area. According to the Equality State Policy Center, non-Indian people would be minimally impacted, although some new tax advantages could benefit businesses. Enrolled tribal members in the extended area, however, would be under tribal jurisdiction in criminal or legal cases, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal courts would have more authority.
Under the Wind River tribe-as-state application, the tribes aren’t seeking all-out regulatory authority, but they would gain the right to monitor local air quality and to comment on regional projects that could impact environmental health. The state would maintain regulatory control over the oil and gas industry, and it’s doubtful the decision would affect energy development. Along with the rest of Wyoming, the Wind River tribes rely heavily on oil and gas for government revenues, but some homes on the reservation have hazardous drinking water, possibly linked to industry activity, and the EPA has even ordered some residents to ventilate homes when bathing or running taps.
Many observers expect the appeals court to overturn the EPA’s decision. Donahue says courts are typically reluctant to find in favor of tribes in such boundary disputes.
But one detail in the case could prove essential for the tribes’ argument: The century-old law behind the dispute didn’t set a single sum payment for the territory, like many other Indian Country purchases, but instead allowed for settlers to buy ceded lands one parcel at a time. “The U.S. Supreme Court has said that distinction is significant,” Donahue says, since it’s been interpreted to mean Congress wasn’t reducing the reservation boundary while the tribes retained an interest in the area. If the appeals court or the Supreme Court upholds that view, tribes with similar circumstances could pick up the strategy.
MARYSVILLE – Marysville School District received a bomb threat at approximately 1:45 today at the Marysville-Pilchuck High School according to a release from the district.
A notice to parents states the district has evacuated staff and students to the north lot off of Tomahawk turnpike. Local law enforcement is requesting that vehicles be left on campus.
District buses will pick up students out of the north lot. Special Education Life Skills students will be able to be picked up at the north lot as well.
Student reunification will take place at the church on 51st Avenue and 116th. Students may ride a bus home, get a ride with parent or guardian, or stay on campus at the evacuation site.
Vehicles will be available for pick up once the scene has been released by law enforcement. Families with students enrolled in the district will receive additional school messenger calls notifying them once they are available.
Two dancers in regalia work a Native American Professional Parent Resources outreach booth at the 2014 Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, N.M. | Courtesy Photo
OKLAHOMA CITY – Despite living in a state where Medicaid was not expanded, Oklahoma’s 38 federally recognized tribes have found a way to state tribal liaison, Sally Carter – and she has found her way to them. In this newly created position, Carter is quick to tell you that she considers Oklahoma to have 39 tribes because even though the Euchee are not federally recognized, they are state recognized. Breathlessly, she says she is learning fast.
“I still count them,” she said.
Carter carries Euchee concerns on health matters back to the state capital as part of a new stance where the health decision makers seek to repair a long and tenuous relationship between historical archetypes. When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010, a series of listening sessions between Oklahoma and the tribes occurred at six different tribal jurisdictions across the state to talk about the federal health overhaul. Replete with opening ceremonies and songs, the state was figuratively stretching its hand toward its Native inhabitants.
From these beginnings, Carter takes the message back to the capital that the tribes want to be at the decision-making table with state leaders, including the newly re-elected Republican governor, Mary Fallin.
Carter said the tribes don’t just want to be told about important developments, they want to help shape the direction the state will take on things such as the implementation of the ACA and how to reduce health disparities like high smoking and diabetes rates in their nations.
To date, 1,638 American Indians in Oklahoma have enrolled for federal health insurance through ACA while 13,061 have enrolled nationally, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report. When compared to the 9.1 million estimated Obamacare enrollees, American Indians number roughly 1 percent of all Americans who now have health insurance who had none before.
But that thing that makes Oklahoma’s Indian Country so different—that thing that separates it from other U.S. states with tribes – is that it has no official Indian reservations. A federal land allotment experiment from the 1900s crisscrossed the state’s territory into a veritable smorgasbord of jurisdictions – federal, tribal, municipal, state.
Carter is working on how to stimulate enrollment among Oklahoma tribes.
If the government wants to reach the American Indians here, it’s best to go to each tribe, Carter said. That was a go-to move state health officials embraced as they discussed ACA with the tribes. The things Carter found surprised her although she is an Oklahoma resident and had lived near various tribal jurisdictions for years.
“They are the only (minority) group that has to show their race,” she said, her voice lilting. “I mean, no other group has to do that. They have to prove it with an enrollment card of some kind.”
Official American Indian citizenship is important because the ACA has special provisions that allow Indians to “opt out” of having to enroll in federal health insurance, if they choose. But Indians need to fill out form OMB No. 0938-1190 that officially removes them, officials said. Not doing so will mean an eventual penalty.
“(ACA) is very complex and not one of us would say that we know it all,” Carter said. So the state took the best of what they knew after weeks of training on the health plan to several tribal jurisdictions. When all sides met, Carter said she was schooled. American Indians have strong opinions about the state/ federal government encroaching on their personal privacy and tribal sovereignty with this new federal health insurance.
Because Oklahoma chose not to expand Medicaid, enrolling American Indians in ACA takes a certain degree of cultural finesse and dogged persistence, Carter said. In other tribally populated states, like North Dakota, the move to expand Medicaid fills in where ACA may not be a strong priority, said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-ND. The emphasis is reducing uninsured numbers, she said.
“The State of North Dakota expanded Medicaid, which has helped uninsured, low-income individuals and families, including many Native Americans throughout the state, get access to affordable health care,” Heitkamp said. “ Medicaid expansion is giving families opportunities they didn’t have before to afford to see a doctor regularly and get access to needed medications, while reducing costs for everyone – those with health coverage and those without.”
The Oklahoma tribal liaison added that even while enrollment curiosity abounded, many did not qualify for ACA because they did not file income tax returns. American Indians can enroll in ACA at any time – not just during enrollment periods, but their tax filings allow them also to file the exemption – if they chose to forgo coverage.
American Indians have a higher unemployment rate than other groups–peaking in 2013, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population survey. Indian unemployment rates averaged 11.3 percent compared to 9.1 percent of the mainstream during that time. High unemployment rates among Indians tend to keep more Indians ineligible for ACA enrollment, Carter said.
What has also dampened Oklahoma’s outreach has been a distrustful relationship between the state and tribes—this makes it harder for federal initiatives to come through the front door, said Terry Cline, Oklahoma’s commissioner of health. He points to the good faith of the tribal/state meetings.
“I considered the listening sessions a good start,” he said. An official summary on the sessions reported 193 attendees at the six sessions, several of which Cline attended.
“We held those sessions to have open dialogue,” he said. “What you hear from one tribe might be different from another tribe says.”
As for ACA and tribes, a tribe’s type of relationship with the federal government, either Self-Governance or direct service, dictated outreach approaches because that’s how health dollars are administered by tribes in states, especially in Oklahoma, officials said.
Tribes that operate under provisions of the Indian Self Determination Act might outreach on ACA directly to members in their own tribally run health systems and tribes that are direct service entities may forgo outreach to their local Indian Health Service (IHS) service facility. In both regions, IHS and tribal facilities can accept ACA insurance from patients and lessen the amount of contract (out-of-IHS system) health dollars it spends, officials said.
“Tribes have a lot of interest in ACA,” Carter said. “Tribal leaders and the health department can inspire and direct tribal members to enroll.”
Both of the tribal-to-federal relationships are considered when the state of Oklahoma contacts tribes, and the state tends to follow the federal approach, Carter said. Putting on different hats to deal with different tribes is prudent.
“Tribes need to see people they know and that they can trust who know about American Indian provisions,” she said. “I believe in face-to-face interactions. States usually contact them (tribes) with emails or letters, but a relationship needs to be worked on and allowed to develop.”
Cline said no special state appropriations exist to outreach to tribes for ACA enrollment in Oklahoma but he’s optimistic that other types of federal grants to reduce health disparities will help. The health commissioner said he knows Oklahoma has room for ACA Native growth through grants.
The HHS report points out that Oklahoma has the highest density of Indians among Federally Facilitated Marketplace (FFM) states with 3.5 percent of the population followed by Wyoming, with 3.1 percent. Wyoming’s total Native ACA enrollment stands at 309, the report shows.
At this point, Oklahoma seems to lead the state in the number of Natives it has enrolled, just exceeding figures for California. But as enrollment rolls on, officials expect more American Indians to register. Indian Country (the term used to characterize where a federal-tribal relationship exists) extends beyond Oklahoma.
Other states with significant Native populations include Arizona, California, New Mexico, South Dakota and North Dakota. ACA data gathering for Native numbers is in its infancy, organizers said. They say the goal is to pool their information from various regions (via Indian advocacy agencies) to get a more precise picture of Native ACA enrollment. Due to their smaller population numbers, American Indian statistics are often overlooked, officials said.
Other mainstream entities who track the progress are unclear about just how many have actually signed up for ACA. Michelle McEvoy, vice-president of survey, research and evaluation for the Commonwealth Fund, said that no Native specific information has been garnered by her group.
“Latinos currently represent about 17 percent of the U.S. population, so they have a greater probability of being sampled than American Indians who represent about 1.2 percent of the U.S. population,” she said.
Likewise, the non-profit Enroll America, relies on Native ACA enrollment numbers from federal sources, wrote Jessica McCarron, deputy press secretary, by e-mail.
“We do work with partners at the local level to reach different communities, like Native American groups in certain parts of the country,” McCarron stated. “We work with a few partners who have made outreach to tribal communities a high priority.”
Meanwhile, Carter is optimistic about ACA enrollment and reaching American Indians in Oklahoma.
“(ACA) is bigger than all of us,” she said. “We can’t do this alone; it only happens when the state extends its hands across the table and says we need to do this for all the people.”
– This story was funded by the University of Southern California’s (USC) Annenberg School of Journalism as one project undertaken by the 2014 class of California Endowment Health Journalism Fellows. S.E. Ruckman is writing a three-part series on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in Indian country. In addition to mainstream viewpoints, American Indian health advocates and American Indian enrollees are visited to gauge the national health plan’s implementation in Native populations. Fellows’ projects can be found at www.reportingonhealth.org.
NATIVE AMERICAN ACA ENROLLEES STATE ENROLLMENT TOTALS
*Wyoming: 309
*New Mexico: 566
*Oklahoma: 1,635
+California: 1,401
*Arizona: 514
*North Dakota: 82
*South Dakota: 271
TOTAL: 13,061
Sources: (March 2014) *HHS Summary Report; +California Department of Health Care Services
