Horrible Healthcare on the Rez

NewsReal Blog ^ | August 20, 2009 | Matthew Vadum

[HorowitzianConservative]

"If you want to see what government-run healthcare looks like, go to an Indian reservation," said former Judge Andrew Napolitano on the "Glenn Beck Program" Wednesday. "There's a saying on the reservation...don't get sick after June."

The show visited two Indian reservations in South Dakota to see how the federal government's healthcare system for native Americans, Indian Health Service, actually works.

"[They] call it Indian Health Service but that's kind of like saying 'jumbo shrimp' because the service is not there," said South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds.

One woman recounted how her son had been treated by the Indian Health Service. The teenager's jaw was shattered when he was kicked in the head by a bull. The nurses ran out of fresh tubes that needed to be inserted in his throat to help him breathe. She said he was lying on the floor in a pool of blood as nurses scrambled to pick up dirty tubes to insert in his throat. Such medical horror stories are commonplace in Indian country.

[DuncanWaring]

And don’t forget all the horror stories out of Walter Reed a couple of years ago.

[Timmy]

We take our church youth group on a missions trip to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (South Dakota) every year. It is terrible how those people live. They are a people with no pride and no hope. Alcoholism is about 70%, divorce higher, and most kids are poorly cared for. I tell our kids to look around, that this is what socialism results in.