Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez, Author at �鶹Ů�� Health News

ICE Arrests Are Separating Families. Here’s How To Plan Ahead.

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez — Thu, 21 May 2026 09:00:00 +0000

President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has parents who lack legal residency worried about the welfare of children left behind. Some jurisdictions are taking action. Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., allow families to name temporary guardians if a parent is detained or deported.

�鶹Ů�� Health News correspondent Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez appeared on WAMU’s May 13 Health Hub segment to explain why keeping the children of immigrants out of foster care can increase the likelihood of families reuniting and reduce the health impacts of a traumatic separation.

�鶹Ů�� Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at �鶹Ů��—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about .

This article/news/wamu-health-hub-children-detained-immigrants-may-21-2026/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=2237555&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Religious Anti-Abortion Center Finds Opportunity in Town Without OB-GYNs

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez — Wed, 20 May 2026 09:00:00 +0000

SANDPOINT, Idaho — An anti-abortion pregnancy center on the outskirts of this Idaho Panhandle town greets visitors with an abridged Bible verse painted on the wall of its waiting area: “Come to me & I will give you rest.”

7B Care Clinic has been operating in Sandpoint since 2001 and was previously called Life Choices Pregnancy Center and Sandpoint Crisis Pregnancy Center. It is of a nationwide network of Christian evangelical centers called Care Net. 7B, one of about 1,200 pregnancy centers affiliated with Care Net, offers pregnancy tests, limited ultrasounds, parenting and life skills classes, community support groups, and other free resources, such as children’s clothing. Donations from people, businesses, and more than 40 churches keep 7B’s operations running, Executive Director Janine Shepard said.

Such centers are known as crisis pregnancy centers or pregnancy resource centers. They offer limited resources and medical services to pregnant women and aim to dissuade them from having abortions. Healthcare groups including the have said many crisis pregnancy centers use unethical and deceptive practices to bring women into their organizations.

Traffic at 7B has picked up since the local hospital and its OB-GYNs moved out of state three years ago. The closure left a hole in reproductive health services in this town of more than 10,000 on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille and surrounding rural areas.

“We are seeing a lot more people,” Shepard said.

7B Care Clinic provides limited ultrasounds in the Sandpoint, Idaho, area. Shepard says the majority of women who see their ultrasounds go through with their pregnancies. (Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez/�鶹Ů�� Health News)

The crisis pregnancy center also provides gently used children’s clothing and other items at no cost. (Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez/�鶹Ů�� Health News)

By December 2024, more than two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned nationwide abortion rights in its Dobbs decision, Idaho had of its OB-GYNs. 7B is expanding, with the goal of bringing obstetric care back to Sandpoint. The organization plans to add to its current building once it’s paid off, Shepard said, and it’s in talks with a hospital about 30 miles away in Washington state to bring in an OB-GYN once a week to provide prenatal care.

If obstetric care existed now in Sandpoint, Shepard said, “we wouldn’t even be considering” the expanded services. “But there’s such a need. And our community suffers because of it.”

As rural communities face the and , crisis pregnancy centers are growing in influence. Some states have approved legislation granting the organizations greater protections from oversight and regulation, and clinics have seen a massive and in recent years.

In a town with limited maternity care, 7B has been providing important resources to struggling low-income women. But critics say the religious nonprofit, which is not medically licensed and isn’t required to meet regulatory standards for medical facilities, has an agenda that makes it an inappropriate place for pregnant patients to seek medical care.

A message from Christian Scripture is displayed in 7B Care Clinic’s lobby. (Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez/�鶹Ů�� Health News)

Jen Jackson Quintano, a Sandpoint resident and the founder of the Pro-Voice Project, a nonprofit that advocates for abortion rights in Idaho, said crisis pregnancy centers mislead patients by drawing them in with the offer of free pregnancy-related services before delivering their anti-abortion pitch.

“We all need clarity on what those services are: ministry-first, rather than comprehensive medicine,” Quintano said.

Shepard said there are misconceptions about the organization, and she invites people to take a tour of 7B to learn what it does. She said her staff talk to pregnant women about abortion, adoption, and parenting as options and hope they feel supported enough to make a “life-affirming” decision.

7B reflects a trend of crisis pregnancy centers seeking to expand their operations in maternal care deserts and regions with gaps in women’s healthcare, said Andrea Swartzendruber, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Georgia College of Public Health. Swartzendruber has studied crisis pregnancy centers in the U.S. since 2018.

“Crisis pregnancy centers have, for years and years, capitalized on gaps in access to healthcare,” she said. “In no way, shape, or form do crisis pregnancy centers have the infrastructure or ability or training to bridge those gaps.”

According to Swartzendruber’s research, more than 2,600 crisis pregnancy centers operated in the U.S. as of 2024, more than three times the number of . Many centers have been found to engage in with clients, including putting misleading information on their websites making them appear to be legitimate medical clinics with the goal of attracting women who are seeking abortions.

7B Care Clinic, a few miles from downtown Sandpoint, Idaho, is an affiliate of Care Net, a national evangelical network of about 1,200 crisis pregnancy centers. (Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez/�鶹Ů�� Health News)

The organizations are also seeing support from the Trump administration. On May 10 — Mother’s Day — the Department of Health and Human Services sharing resources and information for new and expectant mothers. It includes a map to find pregnancy centers and cites services the centers provide, such as pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and medical referrals.

‘The Perfect Place for This’

Sandpoint is a small mountain town in a deeply conservative and Christian part of a state with a strict abortion law put into place after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Amelia Huntsberger, one of the OB-GYNs who left Sandpoint three years ago, said the town is “the perfect place for this,” referring to the expansion of the 7B Care Clinic.

In underresourced areas, the benefits that crisis pregnancy centers may bring are welcome.

Lori Sabin, a licensed midwife in Bonners Ferry, about 30 miles north of Sandpoint, said that 7B is a helpful resource to the community, especially for people who struggle to get healthcare because of a lack of health insurance or who face challenges in traveling for care.

“The nicest thing about 7B is all their services are free,” Sabin said, adding that the classes and free baby items are particularly helpful for young first-time mothers. “They can point them in the right direction. They tell them where the midwives are; they tell them where the OBs are.”

Huntsberger, who practiced in Sandpoint for more than a decade and now lives in Oregon, also acknowledged the benefits she saw 7B bring for patients, including the parenting classes and support groups. But she has concerns about its resemblance to a medical facility that provides healthcare.

Lisa Battisfore, founder of Reproductive Transparency Now, a Chicago-based organization that provides education and outreach about crisis pregnancy centers, acknowledged that the limited services they provide can be helpful but said the bad outweighs the good.

“If someone needs diapers or someone needs formula and a crisis pregnancy center is willing to give that to them, it’s difficult to say that that in isolation is a bad thing, but you have to look at the bigger picture,” Battisfore said.

Crisis pregnancy centers are largely unregulated and are protected by First Amendment rights to free speech and religious exercise. The Supreme Court crisis pregnancy centers to go to court to block a state attorney general’s subpoena for donor funding information. Critics say lack of oversight allows centers to spread misinformation about abortion and abortion pill “reversal,” a procedure the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has called “.”

Crisis pregnancy centers have against states trying to increase regulation and oversight. Those protections have allowed some of the organizations to blur the line between anti-abortion activism and medical care.

Anti-abortion advocates hold signs in front of the Supreme Court on June 25, 2018. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

“They seem to be really good at walking on both sides of that line when it suits them best, and that does not suit pregnant people best,” Battisfore said.

She referenced a recent case in Texas in which a woman was hospitalized for an ectopic pregnancy days after she received an ultrasound and a clean bill of health from a crisis pregnancy center. An OB-GYN who works with the Abundant Life Pregnancy Resource Center “there is nothing to fix” when asked about the error. There have been at crisis pregnancy centers.

What’s Next for Sandpoint

Bonner General Health CEO John Hennessy and Chief Medical Officer Stacey Good say the Sandpoint, Idaho, hospital is working to rebuild trust in the community after its labor and delivery unit closed three years ago. (Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez/�鶹Ů�� Health News)

angered a lot of locals when it closed its labor and delivery unit three years ago. Residents lamented that women needed to travel farther to give birth and mourned the loss of the OB-GYNs. Since then, the hospital has been working to rebuild trust with the community.

This year, the hospital created a women’s health committee that includes hospital board members, staff, and others. Hospital CEO John Hennessy and Chief Medical Officer Stacey Good, a physician, said their priority is to hear from the community and increase awareness about the women’s healthcare that’s still available.

Women can still receive a range of services, including prenatal care from a nurse practitioner who travels to Bonner General from Coeur d’Alene once a week and other clinicians who can provide more basic gynecological care. A position for a gynecologist at the hospital has been open since May 2023, and Hennessy said filling it remains a priority.

Sandpoint resident Makayla Sundquist, a licensed counselor, grew up in town. She got married last year and has been thinking about starting a family with her husband. She wondered if she would feel safe knowing she’d need to travel at least an hour to the nearest hospital with labor and delivery services.

But she also has doubts about 7B as a potential option for local care. She was skeptical that an anti-abortion, faith-based organization would provide accurate information on the options available to her.

“It is something that I do think about and do have fear about,” Sundquist said. “I wish that wasn’t my reality.”

This article/rural-health/anti-abortion-crisis-pregnancy-center-sandpoint-idaho-obgyn-maternity-care-desert/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=2236411&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

States Update Guardianship Laws To Keep Children of Immigrants Out of Foster Care

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 18:30:00 +0000

As family separations caused by immigration enforcement ramped up last year under President Donald Trump, I wondered what happens to the children whose parents are detained or deported. I found that some have been placed in foster care if they don’t have other family or friends to assume responsibility for them — but it’s not known how many.

The federal government doesn’t track what happens to children after their parents are detained or deported, and state data varies. Independent news reports are scarce and likely undercount the issue. But there’s evidence that in many states some of the children are being placed in foster care.

In Oregon, for example, there have been at least two cases in which children who were separated from their parents were placed into foster care by the state. Jake Sunderland, press secretary for the state Department of Human Services, said that before last fall, this “simply had never happened before.”

Separation from a parent can be deeply traumatic for children and lead to a broad range of , including post-traumatic stress disorder. Some states have responded by updating their temporary guardianship laws to help immigrant parents better prepare care for their children in the event of their detention or deportation.

Lawmakers in New Jersey are to allow parents to nominate standby, or temporary, guardians in the event of death, incapacity, or debilitation. The proposal adds separation caused by federal immigration enforcement as another allowable reason.

Nevada and California passed similar laws last year.

Yet some parents are hesitant to participate, said Cristian Gonzalez-Perez, an attorney at Make the Road Nevada, a nonprofit that provides resources to immigrant communities. The hesitancy is out of fear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could access their personal information and use it to target them for detention or deportation.

My colleagues Claudia Boyd-Barrett, Renuka Rayasam, and Amanda Seitz reported on a case in which ICE used data from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement to detain parents under the impression they were reuniting with their children, highlighting the precarious situation for immigrant parents.

Additionally, ICE detention makes it difficult to reunite parents with their children if they’ve been placed in foster care because reunification often requires court-ordered programs, said Juan Guzman, director of children’s court and guardianship at the Alliance for Children’s Rights, a legal advocacy organization in Los Angeles. Nominating a guardian is one way to ease immigrants’ feelings of helplessness when facing the threat of detention or deportation, Gonzalez-Perez said.

As President Donald Trump’s heightened immigration enforcement continues across the country, some states are updating temporary guardianship laws to keep the children of detained and deported immigrants out of state custody.

April 14, 2026

This article/mental-health/the-week-in-brief-immigrant-children-guardianship-laws/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=2228116&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

States Change Custody Laws To Keep Children of Detained Immigrants Out of Foster Care

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000

As immigration authorities carry out what President Donald Trump has promised will be the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, several states are passing laws to keep children out of foster care when their detained parents have no family or friends available to take temporary custody of them.

The federal government doesn’t track how many children have entered foster care because of immigration enforcement actions, leaving it unclear how often it happens. In Oregon, as of February two children had been placed in foster care after being separated from their parents in immigration detention cases, according to Jake Sunderland, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Human Services.

“Before fall 2025, this simply had never happened before,” Sunderland said.

As of mid-February, nearly by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The record 73,000 people in detention in January represented an compared with one year before. According to , parents of 11,000 children who are U.S. citizens were detained from the beginning of Trump’s term through August.

The news outlet NOTUS that at least 32 children of detained or deported parents had been placed in foster care in seven states.

Sandy Santana, executive director of Children’s Rights, a legal advocacy organization, said he thinks the actual number is much higher.

“That, to us, seems really, really low,” he said.

Separation from a parent is deeply traumatic for children and can lead to , including post-traumatic stress disorder. Prolonged, intense stress can lead to more-frequent infections in children and developmental issues. That “toxic stress” is also associated with responsible for learning and memory, according to �鶹Ů��.

, and amended existing laws during Trump’s first term to allow guardians to be granted temporary parental rights for immigration enforcement reasons. Now the enforcement surge that began after Trump returned to office last year has prompted a new wave of state responses.

In New Jersey, lawmakers are considering to amend a state law that allows parents to nominate standby, or temporary, guardians in the cases of death, incapacity, or debilitation. The bill would add separation due to federal immigration enforcement as another allowable reason.

Nevada and California passed laws last year to protect families separated by immigration enforcement actions. California’s law, called the , allows parents to nominate guardians and share custodial rights, instead of having them suspended, while they’re detained. They regain their full parental rights if they are released and are able to reunite with their children.

There are significant legal barriers to reunification once a child is placed in state custody, said Juan Guzman, director of children’s court and guardianship at the Alliance for Children’s Rights, a legal advocacy organization in Los Angeles.

If a parent’s child is placed in foster care and the parent cannot participate in required court proceedings because they are in detention or have been deported, it’s less likely they will be able to reunite with their child, Guzman said.

are U.S. citizens who live with a parent or family member who does not have legal immigration status, according to research from the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Within that group, 2.6 million children have two parents lacking legal status.

Santana said he expects the number of family separation cases to grow as the Trump administration continues its immigration enforcement campaign, putting more children at risk of being placed in foster care.

the agency to make efforts to facilitate detained parents’ participation in family court, child welfare, or guardianship proceedings, but Santana said it’s uncertain whether ICE is complying with those rules.

ICE officials did not respond to requests for comment for this report.

Before the change in California’s law, the only way a parent could share custodial rights with another guardian was if the parent was terminally ill, Guzman said.

If parents create a preparedness plan and identify an individual to assume guardianship of their children, the state child welfare agency can begin the process of placing the children with that individual without opening a formal foster care case, he added.

While Nevada lawmakers expanded an existing guardianship law last year to include immigration enforcement, the measure requires the parents to take the additional step of filing notarized paperwork with the secretary of state’s office, said Cristian Gonzalez-Perez, an attorney at Make the Road Nevada, a nonprofit that provides resources to immigrant communities.

Gonzalez-Perez said some immigrants are still hesitant to fill out government forms, out of fear that ICE might access their information and target them. He reassures community members that the state forms are secure and can be accessed only by hospitals and courts.

The Trump administration has taken through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the IRS, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other entities.

Gonzalez-Perez and Guzman said that not enough immigrant parents know their rights. Nominating a temporary guardian and creating a plan for their families is one way they can prevent feelings of helplessness, Gonzalez-Perez said.

“Folks don’t want to talk about it, right?” Guzman said. “The parent having to speak to a child about the possibility of separation, it’s scary. It’s not something anybody wants to do.”

This article/courts/immigrants-ice-arrests-family-separation-children-foster-care/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=2178906&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Lawmakers Seek To Protect Crisis Pregnancy Centers as Abortion Clinic Numbers Shrink

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Conservative lawmakers in multiple states are pushing legislation drafted by an anti-abortion advocacy group to increase protections for crisis pregnancy centers, organizations that provide some health-related services but also work to dissuade women from having abortions.

The legislation would prohibit state and local governments from requiring crisis pregnancy centers to perform abortions, provide referrals for abortion services, or inform patients about such services or contraception options. It also would allow crisis pregnancy centers to sue the violating government entity.

Wyoming lawmakers of the Center Autonomy and Rights of Expression Act, or , on March 4. Other versions have advanced in and this year. One was in 2025. The CARE Act is “model legislation” created by the , an anti-abortion, conservative Christian legal advocacy group.

A similar proposal, the , was introduced in Congress last year but hasn’t moved out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The Wyoming bill says that pregnancy centers, many of which are affiliated with religious organizations, need legal protection after facing “unprecedented attacks” following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. It says that several state legislatures have introduced bills that . Opponents of these centers say they falsely present themselves to consumers as medical clinics, though they are not subject to state and federal laws that protect patients in medical facilities.

“Across the country, government officials are increasingly, increasingly targeting pregnancy care centers,” Valerie Berry, executive director of the in Cheyenne, said at a February legislative hearing on the Wyoming bill. “This legislation is not about creating division. It’s about protecting constitutional freedoms, freedom of speech, and freedom of conscience.”

Wyoming state , a Republican, expressed concern at the hearing about granting protections to pregnancy centers that other private businesses do not have.

“They have protections in place,” he said. “My issue with this is giving extra special protections.”

In 2022, Wellspring Health Access, the only clinic in Wyoming that provides abortions, in an arson attack.

“We are the ones providing the accurate information on reproductive health care, and we suffer the consequences for that,” Julie Burkhart, the president and founder of Wellspring Health Access, told �鶹Ů�� Health News.

, a professor at the University of California-Davis School of Law, said the proposed legislation would insulate crisis pregnancy centers from having to meet the standards that medical organizations face. It would blur the line between advocacy and medical practice, she said. And such legislation provides Republicans with a potentially useful campaign message ahead of midterm elections.

“The GOP needs a messaging strategy as for how it cares about women even if it bans abortion and even if it doesn’t want to commit state resources to helping people before and after pregnancy,” Ziegler said. “The strategy is to outsource that to pregnancy counseling centers, which of course increases the incentive to protect them.”

Model Legislation

The Alliance Defending Freedom is the same group that , the 1973 court ruling that protected the right to abortion nationwide. The group drafted model legislation to establish a 15-week abortion ban that was the basis of a 2018 Mississippi law. That led to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court case that overturned Roe.

The alliance said its attorneys were unavailable to comment on the organization’s strategy for the CARE Act. In for the bill, the group said federal, state, and local efforts are targeting pregnancy care centers in a “clear attempt to undermine and impede” their work and shut them down.

In recent years, have been targeted with vandalism and threats.

But the attacks the model legislation primarily aims to address are the legal and regulatory efforts by some states seeking more oversight of the crisis pregnancy centers, including a California law requiring centers to clearly inform patients about their services. That law was overturned when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of crisis pregnancy centers’ argument that it violated their First Amendment rights.

The Supreme Court is that will decide whether states can subpoena the organizations for donor and internal information.

It’s unlikely that crisis pregnancy centers would face such regulatory measures in the conservative states where the legislation is under consideration. One Wyoming lawmaker acknowledged that in the February committee hearing.

Differing Services

During that hearing, state , a Republican who heads the committee sponsoring the bill, presented the measure as “so important, especially with our maternity desert,” referring to a lack of access to maternity health care services.

Some crisis pregnancy centers may have a few licensed clinicians, but many do not. Many offer free resources, such as diapers, baby clothing, and other items, sometimes in exchange for participation in counseling or parenting classes.

Planned Parenthood clinics, by contrast, provide a range of health services, such as testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, primary care, and screenings for cervical cancer. They also are regulated as medically licensed organizations.

Since Roe was overturned, the abortion rights movement has faced significant challenges. Congressional Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, to abortion providers. The move contributed to Planned Parenthood closing last year.

As of 2024, operated nationwide, according to a map created by researchers at the University of Georgia, compared with providing abortions at the end of 2025.

a research organization affiliated with the anti-abortion nonprofit SBA Pro-Life America, has suggested that pregnancy centers could help fill the gap left by the Planned Parenthood closures.

Ziegler said that would leave patients vulnerable to medical risks.

Centers’ Growing Power

Previous efforts in , Colorado, and Vermont to regulate crisis pregnancy centers arose from concerns over allegations of and questions about .

In 2024, in five states to investigate whether centers were misleading patients into believing that their personal information was protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, and to find out how the centers were using patients’ information.

Courts, including the Supreme Court, have regularly that argue the attempts at regulation are violations of their First Amendment rights to free speech and religious expression.

Crisis pregnancy centers also have seen a flood of funding since Roe was overturned.

At least , including crisis pregnancy centers, according to the Lozier Institute.

Six states distribute a portion of their federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funding — cash payments meant for low-income families with children — to crisis pregnancy centers. Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Oklahoma have provided tens of millions of dollars for the organizations.

One analysis found that crisis pregnancy centers also received from 2017 to 2023, including from the 2020 relief package signed into law during Trump’s first term amid the covid pandemic.

Despite the challenges clinics that provide abortions face, Burkhart, the head of the Wellspring facility in Wyoming, said it’s important to continue offering access to people who need it. She’s helped open clinics in rural parts of other conservative states and said those clinics continue to see people walking through their doors.

“That proves to me, regardless of your religion, political party, there are times in people’s lives that people need access to qualified reproductive health care,” she said. “That includes abortion.”

This article/courts/abortion-bans-clinics-crisis-pregnancy-centers-maternity-care-wyoming/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=2166071&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Nevada Debuts Public Option Amid Tumultuous Federal Changes to Health Care

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 10:00:00 +0000

More than 10,000 people have enrolled in Nevada’s new public option health plans, which debuted last fall with the expectation that they would bring lower prices to the health insurance market.

Those preliminary numbers from the open enrollment period that ended in January are less than a third of what state officials had projected. Nevada is the third state so far to launch a public option plan, along with Colorado and Washington state. The idea is to offer lower-cost plans to consumers to expand health care access.

But researchers said plans like these are unlikely to fill the gaps left by sweeping federal changes, including the expiration of enhanced subsidies for plans bought on Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

The public option gained attention in the late 2000s when Congress considered but ultimately rejected creating a health plan funded and run by the government that would compete with private carriers in the market. The programs in Washington state, Colorado, and Nevada don’t go that far — they aren’t government-run but are private-public partnerships that compete with private insurance.

In recent years, states have considered creating public option plans to make health coverage more affordable and to reduce the number of uninsured people. Washington was the first state to launch a program, in 2021, and Colorado followed in 2023.

Washington and Colorado’s programs , including a lack of participation from clinicians, hospitals, and other care providers, as well as insurers’ rate reduction benchmarks or lower premiums compared with other plans offered on the market.

Nevada law requires that the carriers of the public option plans — Battle Born State Plans, named after a state motto — lower premium costs compared with a benchmark “silver” plan in the marketplace by 15% over the next four years.

But that amount might not make much difference to consumers with rising premium payments from the loss of the ACA’s enhanced tax credits, said Keith Mueller, director of the Rural Policy Research Institute.

“That’s not a lot of money,” Mueller said.

Three of the eight insurers on the state’s exchange, Nevada Health Link, offered the state plans during the open enrollment period.

Insurance companies plan to meet the lower premium cost requirement in Nevada by , which prompted opposition from insurance brokers in the state. In response, Nevada marketplace officials told state lawmakers in January that they will give a flat-fee reimbursement to brokers.

The public option has faced opposition among state leaders. In 2024, a state judge dismissed a lawsuit, brought by a Nevada state senator and a group that advocates for lower taxes, that challenged the public option law as unconstitutional. They have appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Federal Policy Impacts

Recent federal changes create more obstacles.

Nevada is consistently among the states with the of people who do not have health insurance coverage. Last year, in the state received the enhanced ACA tax credits, averaging $465 in savings per month, according to �鶹Ů��, a health information nonprofit that includes �鶹Ů�� Health News.

But the enhanced tax credits expired at the end of the year, and it that lawmakers will bring them back. Nationwide ACA enrollment has decreased by so far this year, down from record-high enrollment of 24 million last year.

About 4 million people are expected to lose health coverage from the expiration of the tax credits, according to the . An additional 3 million are because of other policy changes affecting the marketplace.

, an associate research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, said the changes to the ACA in the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, will make it more difficult for people to keep their coverage. These changes include more frequent enrollment paperwork to verify income and other personal information, a shortened enrollment window, and an end to automatic reenrollment.

In Nevada, the changes would amount to an losing coverage, according to �鶹Ů��.

“All of that makes getting coverage on Nevada Health Link harder and more expensive than it would be otherwise,” Giovannelli said.

State officials projected ahead of open enrollment that about 35,000 people would purchase the public option plans. Of the 104,000 people who had purchased a plan on the state marketplace as of mid-January, 10,762 had enrolled in one of the public option plans, according to Nevada Health Link.

Katie Charleson, communications officer for the state health exchange, said the original enrollment estimate was based on market conditions before the recent increases in customers’ premium costs. She said that the public option plans gave people facing higher costs more choices.

“We expect enrollment in Battle Born State Plans to grow over time as awareness increases and as Nevadans continue seeking quality coverage options that help reduce costs,” Charleson said.

According to �鶹Ů��, nationally the enhanced subsidies an average of $705 annually in 2024, and enrollees would save an estimated $1,016 in premium payments on average in 2026 if the subsidies were still in place. Without the subsidies, people enrolled in the ACA marketplace could be seeing their premium costs more than double.

Insights From Washington and Colorado

Washington and Colorado are not planning to alter their programs due to the expiration of the tax credits, according to government officials in those states.

Other states that had recently considered creating public options have backtracked. Minnesota officials a public option in 2024, citing funding concerns. Proposals to create public options in Maine and New Mexico also sputtered.

Washington initially saw meager enrollment in its Cascade Select public option plans; only 1% of state marketplace enrollees chose a public option plan in 2021. But that changed after lawmakers with at least one public option plan by 2023. Last year the state reported that 94,000 customers enrolled, accounting for 30% of all customers on the state marketplace. The public option plans were the lowest-premium silver plans in 31 of Washington’s 39 counties in 2024.

found that since Colorado implemented its public option, called the Colorado Option, coverage through the ACA marketplace has become more affordable for enrollees who received subsidies but more expensive for enrollees who did not.

Colorado requires all insurers offering coverage through its marketplace to include a public option that follows state guidelines. The state set premium reduction targets of 5% a year for three years beginning in 2023. Starting this year, premium costs are medical inflation.

Though the insurers offering the public option did not meet the premium reduction targets, enrollment in the Colorado Option has increased every year it has been available. Last year, the state saw record enrollment in its marketplace, with purchasing a public option plan.

Giovannelli said states are continuing to try to make health insurance more affordable and accessible, even if federal changes reduce the impact of those efforts.

“States are reacting and trying to continue to do right by their residents,” Giovannelli said, “but you can’t plug all those gaps.”

Are you struggling to afford your health insurance? Have you decided to forgo coverage? Click here to contact �鶹Ů�� Health News and share your story.

This article/health-care-costs/nevada-public-option-health-insurance-aca-obamacare-enrollment/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=2155854&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

End of Enhanced Obamacare Subsidies Puts Tribal Health Lifeline at Risk

Katheryn Houghton — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Leonard Bighorn said his mother tried for two years to get help for severe stomach pain through the limited health services available near her home on the Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana.

After his mom finally saw a specialist in Glasgow, about an hour away, she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, Bighorn said.

Now, 16 years after his mother’s death, Bighorn has access to regular screenings for cancer and other specialty care that she didn’t have, through a health insurance program the Fort Peck Tribes created in 2016. The program, which covers most of the costs for the roughly 1,000 tribal citizens enrolled, is among a growing number of tribally sponsored health insurance programs.

Such programs vary by tribe, but they essentially screen and enroll people living within tribal boundaries in Affordable Care Act marketplace plans. They allow participating Native Americans flexibility to go to outside doctors and clinics when care through the Indian Health Service is unavailable.

“I’d be in a bind otherwise,” said Bighorn, a 65-year-old tribal game warden and member of the Dakota community.

But the Fort Peck Tribes now limit who has access to that coverage. Other tribal organizations that offer Native Americans similar coverage are struggling with rising costs, too.

The financial crunch began when congressional lawmakers allowed enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to expire on Dec. 31. Those tax credits, created under the Biden administration during the covid-19 pandemic, expanded subsidized health coverage for millions of people. By late 2025, ACA plans saw about 24 million enrollees, more than twice the number of pre-pandemic annual sign-ups. The cost of coverage shot up for most of those people as the expanded subsidies expired, and enrollment has dropped by , according to federal health officials.

The subsidies had also boosted tribal health insurance programs, like the one Bighorn is enrolled in. The programs pay the price of each person’s share of premiums after subsidies, and the coverage lowers patients’ treatment costs. Now that premium prices have ballooned, so have tribes’ costs.

Rae Jean Belgarde, who directs Fort Peck Tribes’ program, said the higher costs leave the tribes with one option at this point: “Start limiting who gets help.”

The tribes are helping people shift to other insurance options and, in some cases, find state programs to cover their premiums. Tribal leaders also sent a letter to Montana’s all-Republican congressional delegation asking them to support extending the subsidies.

“Our program is saving lives,” the letter read. Belgarde said she didn’t know whether the lawmakers responded.

Scrambling for Solutions

U.S. a temporary extension of the enhanced subsidies in January. But that measure . Lawmakers are scrambling for an alternative after President Donald Trump an extension if a bill reaches his desk. On Jan. 15, the president released that includes creating savings accounts for people to pay their health costs — an idea Senate Republicans as an alternative to the subsidies.

A.C. Locklear, CEO of the , a nonprofit that works to improve health in Native communities, said tribes are “looking at ways to cut back just as much as everyone else.”

Native Americans as a group continue to face disproportionately high rates of chronic diseases. Their median age at death is than that of white Americans.

“Reducing access to even just general primary care has a significant impact on those disparities,” Locklear said.

Tribal leaders have said letting the subsidies expire further undermines the federal government’s duty to ensure adequate care for Native Americans.

In exchange for taking tribal land through colonization, the U.S. government made long-standing promises to provide for the health and well-being of tribes. Native Americans are guaranteed free health care at clinics and hospitals operated or funded by the Indian Health Service. But that agency’s chronic underfunding has created massive blackouts in care. It sometimes pays for patients’ outside care through its Purchased/Referred Care program, but that’s limited too. Due to , the agency prioritizes which treatments it will pay for.

To help fill the coverage gaps, some tribal nations have built their own health insurance programs. When tribes pay health premiums, clinics and hospitals in their areas can bill for services that might otherwise go unpaid. Some tribes have leveraged that money to expand services.

“I don’t see tribes getting rid of these programs,” Locklear said. “But it will drastically shift how much tribes can really put back in their community.”

For example, Tuba City Regional Health Care Corp., in northern Arizona within the Navajo Nation, is unique in providing comprehensive cancer treatment on a reservation, Locklear said. The corporation, he said, estimates its costs to cover patients this year are increasing by roughly 170% to nearly $38,000 per month without the enhanced subsidies.

One of the newer programs is on the Blackfeet reservation in northwestern Montana, where basic health services can be hard to find. Medical visits are often offered on a first-come, first-served basis, and services vanish when staff positions go unfilled, said Lyle Rutherford, a Blackfeet Nation council member.

“Some of it is just getting a regular eye appointment, or a primary care appointment,” Rutherford said.

The tribe has been slowly building its health insurance program since launching it in 2024. Rutherford said the enhanced subsidies made that possible. Fewer than 400 people are enrolled out of an estimated 3,000 who qualify. In January, the tribe paused the employer-sponsored coverage portion of its insurance program, which at the time included 52 people.

He said tribal leaders are seeking extra funding to keep the program afloat, and he hopes Congress finds a solution.

Lives on the Line

The impact goes beyond tribes’ insurance programs. The Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based economic and social policy research nonprofit, will become uninsured in 2026 due to the higher costs.

Patients at the Oyate Health Center in Rapid City, South Dakota, are already reporting sky-high premium increases for ACA plans. CEO Jerilyn Church said it’s too soon to know how many will forgo coverage. But she said more uninsured patients would further strain the IHS Purchased/Referred Care program — with officials raising the bar for how sick patients must be to cover care outside of tribal health sites.

“There will be people that will not be able to get the care they need,” Church said, adding that could translate to “people losing their lives.”

Bighorn, the game warden on the Fort Peck Reservation, is among those still covered by the tribes’ insurance program. He has put it to use.

Soon after enrolling, Bighorn needed two hip replacements, surgeries that require off-reservation care and are ranked as low-priority procedures by the Indian Health Service. Bighorn said that in pre-surgery tests, specialists found the cause for his long-standing, dangerously high blood pressure. The diagnosis: untreated lifelong asthma and sleep apnea.

“I was a miserable man, tired all the time,” he said.

Without the tribe’s coverage, Bighorn may have eventually gotten those diagnoses but said it would have likely taken years to get help through the Indian Health Service. That would have meant getting much sicker before receiving care.

�鶹Ů�� Health News correspondent Arielle Zionts contributed to this report.

Are you struggling to afford your health insurance? Have you decided to forgo coverage? to contact �鶹Ů�� Health News and share your story.

This article/insurance/tribal-health-enhanced-obamacare-subsidies-funding-shortages/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=2151252&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Native American Leaders Target High Maternal Mortality in Indian Country

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 20:00:00 +0000

When she was 25 years old, Rhonda Swaney delivering a stillborn baby. She’s a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana. Although her experience was nearly 50 years ago, Swaney said Native Americans continue to receive inadequate maternal care. The data appears to support that belief.

In 2024, the most recent year for which data for the population is available, Native American and Alaska Native people had the among major demographic groups, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to a CDC analysis of 2021 data from 46 maternal mortality review committees, , deaths among Native American and Alaska Native people were considered preventable.

In response, Native organizations, the CDC, and some states are working to boost Native American participation in state maternal mortality review committees, which investigate deaths that occur during pregnancy or within a year after birth. Native organizations are also considering ways tribes could create their own committees.

Kim Moore-Salas, of the Arizona Maternal Mortality Review Committee, said tribal sovereignty, experience, and traditional knowledge are important factors to consider in developing tribal-led committees.

“Our matriarchs, our moms, are what carries a nation forward,” she said.

In 2024, Moore-Salas, a member of the Navajo Nation, became the first Native American co-chair of Arizona’s committee. Last year, she and other Native members of the committee developed guidelines for an American Indian/Alaska Native subcommittee and reviewed its first cases.

The National Council of Urban Indian Health is also working to increase the participation of Urban Indian health organizations in state committee processes. As of 2025, the council had connected Urban Indian health organizations to state maternal mortality review committees in California, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

Native leaders such as Moore-Salas find the efforts encouraging.

“It shows that state and tribes can work together,” she said.

After her stillbirth, Swaney had another complicated pregnancy. She went into labor about three months early, and doctors didn’t expect her son to survive. But he did, and Kelly Camel is now 48. He has severe cerebral palsy and profound deafness. He lives alone but has caregivers to help with cooking and other tasks, said Swaney, 73.

He “has a good sense of humor,” she said. “He’s kind to other people. We couldn’t ask for a more complete child.”

This article/rural-health/the-week-in-brief-indigenous-maternal-mortality/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=2143563&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Native Americans Are Dying From Pregnancy. They Want a Voice To Stop the Trend.

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Just hours after Rhonda Swaney left a prenatal appointment for her first pregnancy, she felt severe pain in her stomach and started vomiting.

Then 25 years old and six months pregnant, she drove herself to the emergency room in Ronan, Montana, on the Flathead Indian Reservation, where an ambulance transferred her to a larger hospital 60 miles away in Missoula. Once she arrived, the staff couldn’t detect her baby’s heartbeat. Swaney began to bleed heavily. She delivered a stillborn baby and was hospitalized for several days. At one point, doctors told her to call her family. They didn’t expect her to survive.

“It certainly changed my life — the experience — but my life has not been a bad life,” she told �鶹Ů�� Health News.

Though her experiences were nearly 50 years ago, Swaney, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said Native Americans continue to receive inadequate maternal care. The data appears to support that belief.

In response to this disparity, Native organizations, the CDC, and some states are working to boost tribal participation in state maternal mortality review committees to better track and address pregnancy-related deaths in their communities. Native organizations are also considering ways tribes could create their own committees.

State maternal mortality review committees investigate deaths that occur during pregnancy or within a year after pregnancy, analyze data, and issue policy recommendations to lower death rates.

According to 2021 CDC data, compiled from 46 maternal mortality review committees, 87% of maternal deaths in the U.S. were deemed preventable. Committees reported that , deaths among Native American and Alaska Native people were considered preventable.

Our matriarchs, our moms, are what carries a nation forward.
Kim Moore-Salas

State committees have received federal money through the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act, which President Donald Trump signed in 2018.

But the money is scheduled to dry up on Jan. 31, when the short-term spending bill that ended the government shutdown expires.

Funding for the committees is included in the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies for fiscal year 2026. That bill must be approved by the House, Senate, and president to take effect.

Native American leaders said including members of their communities in maternal mortality review committee activities is an important step in addressing mortality disparities.

In 2023, tribal leaders and federal officials met to discuss four models: a mortality review committee for each tribe, a committee for each of the 12 Indian Health Service administrative regions, a national committee to review all Native American maternal deaths, and the addition of Native American subcommittees to state committees.

Whatever the model, tribal sovereignty, experience, and traditional knowledge are important factors, said Kim Moore-Salas, a co-chair of the Arizona Maternal Mortality Review Committee. She’s also the chairperson of the panel’s American Indian/Alaska Native mortality review subcommittee and a member of the Navajo Nation.

“Our matriarchs, our moms, are what carries a nation forward,” she said.

Mental health conditions and infection were the leading underlying causes of pregnancy-related death among Native American and Alaska Native women as of 2021, according to the CDC report analyzing data from 46 states.

The CDC found an estimated 68% of pregnancy-related deaths among Native American and Alaska Native people happened within a week of delivery to a year postpartum. The majority of those happened between 43 days and a year after birth.

The federal government has a responsibility under signed treaties to provide health care to the 575 federally recognized tribes in the U.S. through the Indian Health Service. Tribal members can receive limited services at no cost, but the agency is underfunded and understaffed.

A that analyzed data from 2016 to 2020 found that approximately 75% of Native American and Alaska Native pregnant people didn’t have access to care through the Indian Health Service around the time of giving birth, meaning many likely sought care elsewhere. More than 90% of Native American and Alaska Native births occur outside of IHS facilities, . For those who did deliver at IHS facilities, a from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General found that 56% of labor and delivery patients received care that did not follow national clinical guidelines.

The 2024 study’s authors also found that members of the population were less likely to have stable insurance coverage and more likely to have a lapse in coverage during the period close to birth than non-Hispanic white people.

Cindy Gamble, who is Tlingit and a tribal community health consultant for the American Indian Health Commission in Washington, has been a member of the state’s maternal mortality review panel for about eight years. In the time she’s been on the state panel, she said, its composition has broadened to include more people of color and community members.

The panel also began to include suicide, overdose, and homicide deaths in its data analysis and added racism and discrimination to the risk factors considered during its case review process.

Solutions need to be tailored to the tribe’s identity and needs, Gamble said.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all,” Gamble said, “because of all the beliefs and different cultures and languages that different tribes have.”

Gamble’s tenure on the state committee is distinctive. Few states have tribal representation on maternal mortality review committees, according to the National Indian Health Board, a nonprofit organization that advocates for tribal health.

The National Council of Urban Indian Health is also the participation of Urban Indian health organizations, which provide care for Native American people who live outside of reservations, in state maternal mortality review processes. As of 2025, the council had connected Urban Indian health organizations to state review committees in California, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

Native leaders such as Moore-Salas find the current efforts encouraging.

“It shows that state and tribes can work together,” she said.

In March 2024, Moore-Salas became the first Native American co-chair of Arizona’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee. In 2025 she and other Native American members of the committee developed guidelines for the American Indian/Alaska Native subcommittee and reviewed the group’s first cases.

The subcommittee is exploring ways to make the data collection and analysis process more culturally relevant to their population, Moore-Salas said.

But it takes time for policy changes to create widespread change in the health of a population, Gamble said. Despite efforts around the country, other factors may hinder the pace of progress. For example, maternity care deserts are growing nationally, caused by rapid hospital and labor and delivery unit closures. Health experts have raised concerns that upcoming cuts to Medicaid will hasten these closures.

Despite her experience and the ongoing crisis among Native American and Alaska Native people, Swaney hopes for change.

She had a second complicated pregnancy soon after her stillbirth. She went into labor about three months early, and the doctors said her son wouldn’t live to the next morning. But he did, and he was transferred about 525 miles away from Missoula to the nearest advanced neonatal unit, in Salt Lake City.

Her son, Kelly Camel, is now 48. He has severe cerebral palsy and profound deafness. He lives alone but has caregivers to help with cooking and other tasks, said Swaney, 73.

He “has a good sense of humor. He’s kind to other people. We couldn’t ask for a more complete child.”

This article/rural-health/native-american-pregnancy-maternal-mortality-mothers-deaths-tribes/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=2137280&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Republicans Left Tribes Out of Their $50B Rural Fund. Now It’s Up to States To Share.

Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 10:00:00 +0000

The Trump administration is touting its $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program as the largest-ever U.S. investment in rural health care. But the government made minimal mention of Native American tribes in sparsely populated areas and in need of significant improvements to health care access.

Federally recognized tribes can’t directly apply for a share of the rural health fund — only states can. And states aren’t required to consider tribes’ needs. But state applications for the five-year payout show some states with significant Native American populations did so anyway.

Workforce development, technology upgrades, and traditional healing are a few of the initiatives specifically aimed at Native American communities that some states included in their applications, which were due to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Nov. 5. The fund was a late addition to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in response to worries about the harm the spending reductions in Republicans’ bill would have on rural hospitals’ finances.

Some states, , Nevada, , are also considering setting aside 3% to 10% of their federal payouts to distribute among tribes. Washington proposed setting aside $20 million per year.

Federally recognized tribes have direct relationships with the U.S. government, but state governments also allocate resources to tribes and can create policies that support tribal priorities. States and tribes share concerns about the effect that the massive GOP budget bill, which President Donald Trump signed into law in July, will have on the U.S. health system. The law is expected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion and increase the number of uninsured by , according to �鶹Ů��, a health information nonprofit that includes �鶹Ů�� Health News.

Catherine Howden, a CMS spokesperson, said that states are required to develop their applications in collaboration with key stakeholders, including the state governments’ tribal affairs offices or tribal liaisons, as well as “Indian health care providers, as applicable.” But these entities do not include tribal governments or official tribal representatives.

Tribes can apply for Rural Health Transformation Fund subgrants through their states. But during a recent call with federal health officials, tribal leaders expressed frustration about being regarded as just another stakeholder in the issue rather than sovereign nations. Tribal sovereignty guides most government-to-government consultations over proposed federal actions that would have a substantial effect on tribes.

“Even in a scenario where tribal consultation is required, the quality and quantity of that tribal consultation on a state-by-state basis is all over the place,” said Liz Malerba, director of policy and legislative affairs for the United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund, which advocates for tribal nations from Texas to Maine. Malerba is a citizen of the Mohegan Tribe.

Federal policy works better when tribal nations are directly eligible for funding that supports essential services in their communities, Malerba said, adding that tribal leaders are concerned that the reach of the program into their communities will vary considerably.

There are and Native American and Alaska Native people in the U.S. The population faces a lower life expectancy and when compared with other demographics. The Indian Health Service, the federal agency responsible for providing health care to Native Americans and Alaska Natives, has been by Congress.

�鶹Ů�� Health News analyzed how 12 states with significant Native American populations took tribes into account as they developed plans for the pot of federal money.

, , , and were among the states that held tribal consultations or listening sessions ahead of the Nov. 5 application deadline.

In states that did not initiate input from tribes, some Native American leaders made sure their voices were heard in other public hearings. Jerilyn Church, CEO of the Great Plains Tribal Leaders’ Health Board, said she attended an October public meeting in South Dakota because she felt it was important for state leaders to consider how they could use the program’s resources on reservations. There are nine federally recognized tribes in the state, and Native American people make up 9% of the population.

“I felt like we needed to help be that advocate,” said Church, a citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

In the proposed initiatives included in its rural fund application, South Dakota such as improved telehealth and funding for doula programs. It also said the state will continue meeting with the Great Plains tribal health board throughout the five-year funding cycle.

In Oklahoma — where more than 14% of the population is Native American, a higher share than in most other states — tribal representatives were invited to weigh in with the rest of the public when the state was gathering information for its application, the details of which have not been publicly released.

“We’ve welcomed input from any Oklahoman,” said state health department spokesperson Erica Rankin-Riley.

North Dakota in the Rural Health Transformation Program and included initiatives such as expanding physician residency slots with tribal-specific rotations and opportunities for farm-to-table food distributions. But that would have pledged 5% of its federal allotment to tribes. There are five federally recognized tribes in the state, and Native Americans make up nearly 5% of the population.

Some states did include proposals to fund high-priority initiatives for tribes.

for the rural fund included an initiative focused on improving health among Native American communities. Its goals include investing in workforce development for tribes, better care coordination between tribes and rural hospitals, and $2.4 million annually to support Washington State University’s rural health education programs, including its Indigenous health program.

included integrating Indigenous traditional healing in Alaska Native village clinics. It would include offering traditional-healing house calls, hands-on training for healers, and traditional-medicine training for health care providers and staff, according to the application.

One of would support the state’s nine federally recognized tribes in improving health outcomes. The state estimates the initiative would require $20 million per year, or 10% of the Rural Health Transformation Program award.

Whether or not states identified funding for tribes or included tribal priorities in their proposals, tribes will be eligible to apply to their states for subgrants of the Rural Health Transformation Program money. While larger tribes that have more resources, such as grant writers and staff to implement programs, could benefit, smaller tribes may struggle to produce competitive applications.

Church said that the Great Plains Tribal Leaders’ Health Board will know the fruits of its labor when states are notified of their rural health fund allotments by the end of the year.

“Hopefully the work that we did, the advocacy that we did, and the outreach,” Church said, “will result in resources getting to our tribes.”

�鶹Ů�� Health News South Dakota correspondent Arielle Zionts contributed to this report.

This article/race-and-health/native-american-tribes-rural-health-transformation-program/">article; first appeared on �鶹Ů��" rel="nofollow">">�鶹Ů�� Health News and is republished here under a

/?republication-pixel=true&post=2124087&ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;">