Thomas Daschle: “the Senate has just missed an opportunity to fund the basic health care needs of the current Indian Health Service user…”

“the Senate has just missed an opportunity to fund the basic health care needs of the current Indian Health Service user population. We had a chance to provide a $3.44 billion increase for IHS clinical services. Unfortunately, we lost that chance because not a single Republican Senator was willing to apply toward Indian health a small fraction of the revenue that will be raised from closing tax loopholes that allow people to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Some may view this budget resolution as an insignificant exercise. It is not. Unless we do something to increase the funding available to the Appropriations Committee--specifically the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee--it will be next to impossible to increase Indian health funding to any significant degree. I hope my colleagues will stop and think about the weight of the decisions they are making today. Because its budget is so woefully inadequate, the Indian Health Service is forced to use a literal ``life or limb'' standard to ration health care for Indian men, women, and children--people whose health care is supposed to be guaranteed. Indian people are suffering--some are literally dying--because we are failing to provide them the kind of care that most Americans, and every single one of us, take for granted. We have been here before. We had this same debate last year.…”