What if the Indian reservations were to start independent health care facilities? Kinda like casinos.
It's guys like you, with ideas like that, that make billions of dollars.
Very interesting. Perhaps you should look into it.
I’ve suggested that before. I’m sure there are various federal schemes to try to prevent it, but I don’t they’d hold up if the Indians made a stink about it. Seems to me they could make oodles of money doing something a heck of lot more socially responsible than peddling gambling and tobacco. Opt themselves totally out of all malpractice law and set up a tribal council to handle complaints. Good business practice would motivate them to dump any doctors who really screwed up, but they wouldn’t have to pass on to patients the zillions of dollars in extra costs from idiots like John Edwards trumping up phony malpractice cases against obstetricians.
oooooooooo....interesting idea!
One ot the functions of the BIA is overseeing Indian Health programs. Obamacare has been on the res for a long time. In fact, though there may be some good programs out there, many would say it was the prime example of why to keep the government out of health care.
However, the tribal ruling families -— the ones who get the lion's share of all money coming into a treaty tribe -— decided that quick cash was the preferred route.
There were numerous Indonesian financiers lined up to front the money for their new casinos. This allowed the ruling families to conceal who where and what about their financiers — under the phony rubric of tribal national sovereignty.
It also allowed them to put paid to the various enterprising individuals who opened cig and fireworks stands, forcing them to either reopen within a casino or pay more to the tribe as “tax”.
What happens to all the money? Usually if cash, it goes into some overstuffed closet with the rest, or into some other hidden place, or on occasion into buying a bank or two.
Very little of that money ever gets outside of the ruling families — which is why the PNW reservations are in such awlful shape. It also pays the ruling families well to keep the reservations downtrodden -— they can then point to the “needy” tribal members who need more federal dollars. Which then allows them to siphon off yet more money.
Treaty tribal casinos are a racket. Opening health care centers would fit their public image, but expose their real business to too many eyes. And that will never happen.