A recent budget request for Indigenous health care by tribal leaders from around the country looks ahead to fiscal year 2027, proposing a budget of $73 billion to enhance Indigenous health care. The budget is ten times higher than the current funding level.
After the Trump administration took a chainsaw to federal agencies critical to tribal citizens, such as the Bureaus of Indian Affairs and Education, Indigenous leaders feared cuts to tribal health care might be next. However, the President's Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request called to preserve funding for the Indian Health Service, or IHS, which has a history of chronic underfunding.
IHS may not lose critical federal funding, but other programs, grants and workforces that have benefited tribal health face the chopping block or have already been eliminated, including those from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A recent budget request for Indigenous health care by tribal leaders from around the country looks ahead to fiscal year 2027, proposing a budget of $73 billion to enhance Indigenous health care. The budget is ten times higher than the current funding level.
Tribal representatives from across Indian Country collaborated with the National Indian Health Board to formulate the budget recommendations.
"Healthcare is an ecosystem," said Tasha Mousse, a tribal representative on the report and vice president of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes. "And so reducing resources for healthcare is going to impact every other area of society and every other area that the government seeks to improve. If people aren't well, they can't work. They can't provide for their families."
The Oklahoma City Area — which includes all of Oklahoma, Kansas, and a portion of Texas — is the lowest funded IHS area per capita, according to the report. It also ranked the worst for purchased and referred care funding, an IHS program that pays providers for care outside its facilities' capabilities.
The 2027 budget request asks for more funding to support the Oklahoma City Area's workforce development, facility maintenance, purchased and referred care and a permanent reauthorization of the special diabetes program for Indians, among other areas.
It also recommends building a youth residential treatment center dedicated to mental health and substance abuse, saying that there is only one facility of that kind in Oklahoma, which is located in Tahlequah. The request cited a history of youth suicides in Anadarko and more than a dozen hospitalizations for students at Riverside Indian School who were having suicidal ideations.
The Wichita Reservation is at the heart of where this mental health crisis took place.
"Our children across Indian Country are not only our most precious resource, as they're the future generations, they are part of our most vulnerable population," Mousseau said.
She said one of her Lakota mentors taught her how everyone has an inner fire inside them, given by the Thunder Beings.
"When our fire burns very low, that is depression. And when our fire burns very high, that is anxiety," she said. "Really looking at how we help our youth balance that inner fire between those two extremes … within the community of Anadarko, it really looks like again, a diversified approach that also includes cultural identity as a protective factor."
Healthy Minds Policy Initiative reported that "since fiscal year 2019, the 38 federally recognized Native American nations and tribes in Oklahoma have received nearly $74 million from SAMHSA."
Mouseau also pointed to SAMSHA grants helping with suicide prevention and expressed a desire for the Trump administration to uphold tribal sovereignty and recognize health care as a basic human right for all people, not just tribal citizens.
The National Indian Health Board noted in its recent newsletter, "the President's budget serves as a recommended blueprint — it does not determine final funding. Congress ultimately holds the power to set final funding levels through the appropriations process."
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
