Transcript: Yvette Roubideaux, M.D.
Legal changes made in 1975 allowed tribes authority for how they administered local healthcare services.
- [Robideaux:]
- Public Law 93-638 is the Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act, and tribes have the right to self-determination and self-governance, and they actually can chose for themselves whether they want Indian Health Service to continue managing their programs or if they want to assume management of the hospitals and clinics that we run in those communities.
- [Lindberg:]
- So what's the progress on that? Is it a good thing for them to choose to do it themselves?
- [Robideaux:]
- Yes, the tribes have shown that —
- [Lindberg:]
- Seem to be.
- [Robideaux:]
- — that they can do this, that it does work and that they can manage these healthcare programs. There's so many more American Indian people who have gotten educations and have gotten experience in healthcare systems working in the Indian Health Service, and there are some tribes that have businesses that allow them to have some additional resources that they can put towards healthcare. I, actually, when I was working as a physician worked on the Gila River Indian Reservation in the 1990s. The exact year that they transitioned from federal to tribal management, and they've done a fantastic job.