the chickasaw nation alone has over $70 million in such need. we ask also for $3 billion for health information technology to address the disease surveillance and reporting and transition to a telehealth delivery system and to allow tribes to convert to a new electronic health record. we ask for 50 million for newer expanding tribal medical residency programs which will help tribes meet the challenges of physician shortage and funds to deploy broadband construction projects. members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to testify on these important matters today. the chickasaw nation is committed to ensuring the highest quality of health care for our citizens and we look forward to working with you on each of these endeavors. thank you. >> thank you, dr. grim, and thank you for those important suggestions. our last witness is ms. thomas. you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, chairman pallone. can you hear me? >> yes. >> thank you. good morning, members of the committee. i'm a partner in law enforcement where i specialize on

the mission of the chickasaw nation is to advance the overall quality of life of the chickasaw people. in 1994 we entered into a self-governance compact with the healthcare system. we currently serve 90,000 patients the hospital and three outpatient facilities with a staff of 1700. this committee, healthcare for american indians and alaska natives often comes from a system that is separate from that of mainstream america. the ihs is a federal agency with primary responsibility for filling the trust application was acting under the brought authorization of the snyder act congress appropriates funds to ihs, they are inadequate to fulfill the vast needs and cost of care during the covid-19 pandemic, added financial burden, already overwhelmed and underfunded healthcare system. prior to that the indian health system had an average 25% in hospital system, four times older than the national hospital system. limited attention to address a surge of covid-19 cases, further strain limited purchasing dollars and while cdcs noted that handwashing for many measures, approximately 6% of american in

my son was the chief archivist of the chickasaw nation for five years. so it is something i care about. preserving original documents is important. we have a national archive for a reason. we could digitally preserve everything, the constitution of the u.s., the declaration of independence, but we know there is intrinsic value in the original document. i don't know how allowing the record, is ah is a good idea in conducting the study. i don't have a problem with the study. let's just not have people who have already decided what they want to do, making a study as to whether their decision is correct. i don't oppose a review of the program. i just ask we fully fund the dea cidification program and fully fund the study going forward. i ask the chair and ranking member to take a hard look. awayme i see us moving from preserving original documents to just shoveling -- just shuffling them off into storage, 100-year-old records put in storage, that doesn't look good after a couple of years, the chemical interaction that goes on, even in the best kind of storag

into politics, my son was the chief archivist of the chickasaw nation for five years. it is something i care about, preserving the original document is important. we have a national archive for a reason. we can preserve everything, the constitution of the united states, declaration of independence. we know there is intrinsic value in the original document. i certainly don't know how allowing the library itself which is a record of wanting to move this way to conduct a study is a good idea. don't have a problem with the study, let's not have people who decided what they want to do when they study whether the decision is correct. don't oppose the review of the program and we fully fund the decertification program and conduct a truly independent study going forward. take a hard look at this, don't pretend to be the biggest expert in the world, when you see us moving to preserve original documents, shuffling, often to storage. they have to go through a lot of 100 plus-year-old records that were just put off into storage. even in the best kinds of storage, preservation is s

my son was the chief archivist of the chickasaw nation for five years. so it is something i care about. preserving original documents is important. we have a national archive for a reason. we could digitally preserve everything, the constitution of the u.s., the declaration of independence, but we know there is intrinsic value in the original document. i don't know how allowing the record, is ah is a good idea in conducting the study. i don't have a problem with the study. let's just not have people who have already decided what they want to do, making a study as to whether their decision is correct. i don't oppose a review of the program. i just ask we fully fund the dea cidification program and fully fund the study going forward. i ask the chair and ranking member to take a hard look. awayme i see us moving from preserving original documents to just shoveling -- just shuffling them off into storage, 100-year-old records put in storage, that doesn't look good after a couple of years, the chemical interaction that goes on, even in the best kind of storag

their justification was the chickasaw had ceded land which belonged to my nation. this is an audacious claim, that they had somehow joined a confederacy that now had jurisdiction over their land and that could punish the chickasaw leaders for making decisions about it. chickasaw land was not confederacy land, at least vis-a-vis the americans. they rejected what they saw as an aggressive creek move and they would make their own paths holding on to their own national identities. similarly, while some indians joined the early 19th century call of the prophet, for indians to come together as one people and fight the united states, many more rejected what they saw as an assault on their national sovereignty. it was declared, indians were once different people. they are now but one. but it wasn't true. and because indians rejected it, it would never be true. indians did not become one people. shawnee leader black hoof rejected his message in favor of his own vision of shawnee neighborhood and his own leadership of it. like many other leaders of the time black hoof worked

cherokee, chickasaw, choctaw, and seminole tribes. cacan you talk about the w wider implications of this? >> is a landmark case and probably the most important indian law case in the last half a century to come down from the court. it is that powerful. certainly, the other four tribes that were on the trail of tears hahave very y similarr treatatit ththe creek nation has. so while thehere mighte e some nuance a and difference in teres of exactctly h how the treaty ps out for ththese otheher tribes, essentially, the question about what these treaties mean has been answered by the court. so it will be unlikely that the state would be a able to litigae successfullygaininst thosese tribeses to try to sortt of retn ththeir control overr the reservation boundaries.. anand beyond that, just the language of the decisision itsef gogoes far beyonond oklahoma bee they're reiterarating what gorsh is doing is reiterating some foundational principles of tribal sovereignty. so his analysis will have implications for all kinds of indian law cases yet