In addition California spends nearly $1 billion a year in Medi-Cal services for an average of 780 000 illegal immigrants a month over and above emergency health services.
Health economists have estimated that an injection of $250 million per year in Indigenous clinical care and $50 million in preventative care is required to provide services at the same level as for any other group with the health conditions of Indigenous Australians.
Community health centers do a great deal with limited resources. They provide critical medical care services to many who would otherwise have no other place to go or would end up in an emergency room.
We need a vibrant Medicaid program and strategies to expand affordable access to health care for all especially for the specialty care services that community health centers do not provide.
Decades ago women suffered through horrifying back-alley abortions. Or they used dangerous methods when they had no other recourse. So when the Republican Party launched an all-out assault on women's health pushing bills to limit access to vital services we had to ask: Why is the GOP trying to send women back... to the back alley?
Canada is currently the only major industrialized country in the world that does not allow any private administration of health care services that are provided by the public system.
I believe we can incentivize more affordable health care in general by better regulating insurance and creating meaningful competition for health care services.
Half of all women who are sexually active but do not want to get pregnant need publicly funded services to help them access public health programs like Medicaid and Title X the national family planning program.
Some of the best health care services are free or cost very little and are even available to millionaires but hardly anyone knows they exist.
Over 120 Aboriginal communities run their own health services - some have been doing so for 30 years. They struggle with difficult medical problems. They also try to deal with counselling stolen generations issues family relationships violence suicide prevention.
And under the existing circumstances I understand there are situations where people indeed need care and need services but I believe in America that the majority of those people are getting those services under situations and circumstances that are afforded to them by their health care providers and their state government.
Prevention is one of the few known ways to reduce demand for health and aged care services.
Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less.
The only truly individualistic health-care choice - where you receive care that is unpolluted by anyone else's funds - is to forgo insurance altogether paying out-of-pocket for health services as you need them.
Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios and the long legislative battles over health care reform financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible.
One lesson that every nation can learn from China is to focus more on creating village-level enterprises quality health services and educational facilities.
Memorial Day this year is especially important as we are reminded almost daily of the great sacrifices that the men and women of the Armed Services make to defend our way of life.