Tom Coburn: “I just want a few more minutes and then I am through. The Senator from North Dakota makes a great point: that there are…”

“I just want a few more minutes and then I am through. The Senator from North Dakota makes a great point: that there are people who are using reservation-based IHS facilities who are essentially trapped. They are trapped. They don't get the option to go somewhere else. What this bill does--and in many of those instances, the core medical needs are not being met. What this bill does is makes sure the core medical needs are going to be met because we are going to add four new services for those people. So now they are trapped in a system that doesn't deliver the quality, doesn't deliver the service, and doesn't deliver the prevention, we are going to make it worse. We are going to make it worse because we are going to add services that are available to half of the Native American population right now through another Government program, and we are going to dilute the resources for the very people who are trapped on reservations. But the very point is, three-quarters of Native Americans are in an urban area. They are not limited to that. They are not limited at all. They should have had the choice to be able to go wherever they wanted to go today. We turned that down. We had 29 people vote for that--or 28 people vote for that. I know the chairman is going to work with me to try to get there someday. But that is when you give Native Americans their due and meet our commitments.”