RFK Jr. is struggling to keep his promise to protect Native Americans from health cuts

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CBS News

June 2, 2025 / 5:00 AM EDT


WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Navajo Nation leaders took turns talking with the U.S. government's top health official as they hiked along a sandstone ridge overlooking their rural, high-desert town before the morning sun grew too hot. Buu Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, paused at the edge with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Below them, tribal government buildings, homes, and juniper trees dotted the tan and deep-red landscape.

Nygren said he wanted Kennedy to look at the capital for the nation of about 400,000 enrolled members. The tribal president pointed toward an antiquated health center that he hoped federal funding would help replace and described life for the thousands of locals without running water due to delayed government projects.

Nygren said Kennedy had already done a lot, primarily saving the Indian Health Service from a round of staffing cuts rippling through the federal government. "When we started hearing about the layoffs and the freezes, you were the first one to stand up for Indian Country," he told Kennedy, of his move to spare the federal agency charged with providing health care to Native Americans and Alaska Natives.

But Nygren and other Navajo leaders said cuts to federal health programs outside the Indian Health Service are hurting Native Americans. "You're disrupting real lives," Cherilyn Yazzie, a Navajo council delegate, told KFF Health News as she described recent changes. Kennedy has repeatedly promised to prioritize Native Americans' health care. But Native Americans and health officials across tribal nations say those overtures are overshadowed by the collateral harm from massive cuts to federal health programs.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-native-americans-health-cuts/

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I hate to say but

The vast majority of Americans tune out from politics - in some cases naturally, as it's just not an interest, but in other cases, intentionally, as they wave it all away as "rhetoric and hyperbole". Then one day they look up and suddenly see a speeding train heading towards them and some might barely have time to jump out of the way, but the rest will just wave it away as a hallucination and will never know what hit them.

[Bayard]

1. Government not keeping promises to Indigenous people is nothing new

I hope RFKjr doesn't take vaccines away from them. They were some of the hardest hit by Covid.

But, no running water. Let that sink in a minute. Where else in this country would that be acceptable?