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Washington, D.C. - July 24, 2024 — Amber Torres, Interim Chief Operations Officer, Walker River Paiute Tribe of Nevada, National Indian Health Board (NIHB) testified before House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs, July 24, 2024. Torres’ testimony focused on three pieces of legislation, H.R. 8956, the Uniform Credentials for IHS Providers Act of 2024, H.R. 8942, the Improving Tribal Cultural Training for Providers Act of 2024, and H.R. 8955, the IHS Provider Integrity Act.
Healthcare workforce is the critical component of the Indian health system that directly meets the trust and treaty obligation to provide for the healthcare of the Tribes. The legislation before the committee today seeks to address several important components of the staffing and provider hiring and onboarding process.
While NIHB supports the goal the legislation to improve staffing at IHS-operated facilities, there is more work that needs to be done to ensure that the language would not inadvertently impact Tribally operated health systems, and would not have a negative impact on the efficiency of the IHS hiring process.
“The language of the proposed bills would benefit from deeper dialogue with Tribes and IHS to ensure they fully meet the intent of Congress to improve the hiring and onboarding process for providers and the healthcare experience and outcomes for Tribal citizens,” said Torres. “It is also important that the legislation is clear in its intent to improve the operations of the IHS, and that it does not infringe on the sovereignty of Tribes which operate their programs through agreements under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.”
Additionally, Torres encouraged the House Natural Resources Committee to support changes that would categorize CSC and 105(l) leases as mandatory funding.
“Contract support costs and 105(l) lease payments have been determined by the U.S. Supreme Court to be required costs, regardless of the appropriation levels. Therefore, Congress must essentially pay these costs first before other areas of the IHS and Bureau of Indian Affairs budgets can be considered. In recent years, increases to CSC and 105(l) leases limited growth in direct services, facilities, and other administrative support to the IHS budget that would have otherwise gone to support maintaining current staffing and service levels,” Torres said.
Watch the full hearing here.
Read NIHB's written testimony here.
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