Rural tribal clinics like Stockbridge-Munsee Health and Wellness Center provide medical services to tribal and community members, but proposed spending cuts to the Indian Health Service — the federal agency that provides tribal medical services across the country — to Medicare and Medicaid would cut across all Wisconsin’s 11 federally recognized tribes.
“It’s not just a budget,” says Shannon Holsey, President of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band Of Mohican Indians, “it’s a trust in treaty responsibility that the United States has entered into with tribal nations for what was taken, and what was supposed to be returned, and the loss of our land. That is the unique relationship that exists and the agreements that were entered into between the United States and tribal nations.”
While the proposed $8 billion budget for IHS is an increase, Holsey says the package lacks advanced appropriations that are needed for funding predictability.
“One of the essential threats of this Big Beautiful Bill is that they’re going to strip the advanced appropriations, and we’re going back into a dysfunctional cycle,” Holsey shares.
Funding the tribe’s health center is complex. “It costs our nation about $16 million to operate it annually. Of that, in it, it’s multifaceted in the resources that come, a mix of both private insurance and Medicare,” explains Holsey.
27 percent of the tribal clinic’s funding comes from Medicare and Medicaid, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The proposed bill would reduce federal Medicaid by $793 billion.
“We have a responsibility to our citizens as a sovereign nation, so it’s going to be up to our tribal government to come up with that offset to meet the basic needs and to manage,” Holsey asserts.
According to Holsey, some of the health concerns that tribal members are facing…