Jeff Bingaman: “I am introducing today the Medicare Indian Health Fairness Act of 2003 with Senators Inouye, Daschle, Murray, Dayton…”

“I am introducing today the Medicare Indian Health Fairness Act of 2003 with Senators Inouye, Daschle, Murray, Dayton, Johnson, Cantwell, and Stabenow. This legislation would take a number of steps to improve the delivery of health care to Native Americans through Medicare and the Indian Health Service, IHS, system. First and foremost, Indian Health Service and tribal hospitals and clinics, which provide health care to American Indians on or near reservations and to Alaska Natives, are currently unable to bill for all Medicare Part B services. In effect, the Indian Health Service is subsidizing the Medicare program because those services, which would otherwise be paid for by Medicare, are instead paid for by IHS, which is horribly underfunded. In 2000, IHS hospitals and clinics were made eligible to bill Medicare for certain Part B services for the first time, including services delivered by physicians and certain other practitioners, but those services were limited and denied payment for Part B items and services, such as the following: Durable medical equipment--this includes such items as wheelchairs, as well as blood testing strips and blood monitors for diabetes patients, which is a severe problem among Native Americans; home and some institutional dialysis supplies and equipment--since the prevalence of diabetes in American Indians--Alaska Natives is three times the rate in the general U.S.”