Indian Health

ARCHIVE: This page no longer being updated.  It is made available for historical reference. (2/9/00)

WGA actively seeks to resolve policy issues and improve communications between state, tribal and federal agencies to ensure that quality health care is available and accessible to Native Americans and Alaska Native tribes. In May 1999, WGA brought together representatives of each of those governmental entities to begin developing a mechanism that could help resolve implementation issues among a number of programs, including the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Federal Medical Assistance Program and the Vaccine for Children Program. These issues were identified by the participants at the 1998 Western Summit on Indian Health sponsored in part by the Utah Department of Health and the WGA. WGA policy resolution 98-032  made resolution of these issues official WGA policy. The efforts of WGA and a number of its partners were rewarded, in part, in October 1999 when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that American Indians and Alaska Natives will be exempted from copayments under CHIP.

The Governors initiated an Indian Health program in 1997 at the request of participants at the Annual Western Summit on Indian Health. In response, the Governors created the Indian Health Task Force - composed of state, tribal and federal health officials - to identify key health problems that needed to be addressed to improve the health of Indian children. Shortly after the task force began its research, Congress established CHIP, a state-federal partnership intended to expand health insurance coverage of low-income children by providing states with federal matching funds. The WGA task force developed recommendations for implementing those portions of CHIP that pertain to Indian children and assessed the strengths and weaknesses of three implementation models.  The recommendations can be found in the WGA:  The State Child Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) and American Indian and Alaska Native Children.    The Governors adopted those recommendations in December 1997.  At the 1998 Western Indian Health meeting, WGA briefed participants on the findings of its report entitled, The State Child Health Insurance Plan: Western State CHIP Implementation Update for the Fifth Annual Western Summit on Indian Health Care.

Governors Leavitt and Hull are lead Governors for the Tribal Health Program.