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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
PRESS
CONTACT: Max Stamper, www.MaximsNews.com,
SKYPE: MaximsNews, (201) 848-6162, DrMaxStamper@optonline.net
LEGAL
CONTACTS: Lloyd B. Miller, Sonosky Chambers Sachse Miller & Munson,
907-229-6377 (cell), 907-258-6377 (office); Gene Peltola, Chief Executive
Officer; Dan Winkelman, Vice President & General Counsel YKHC
(Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation),
907-543-6915
(PRESS
RELEASE) $25 MILLION PLUS AWARDED TO ALASKAN INDIAN TRIBES IN LARGEST LAWSUIT AGAINST
U.S.
INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE
/
MaximsNews
Network / - Anchorage, Alaska -- 17 December 2007 --
More than $25 million has been awarded to a consortium of 58 Alaska tribes in
the largest judgment ever recovered against the U.S. Indian Health Service,
according to a decision released last week by the U.S. Civilian Board of
Contract Appeals in Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation vs. the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services. The total award is likely to be over $48 million,
with interest running from 1996 until the judgment is paid.
YKHC
Chief Executive Officer Gene Peltola, speaking from Bethel, said “We are happy to have this 11 year old battle behind us so that we can
move forward in partnership with the Indian Health Service to address the
critical health care needs of our people. These funds are coming at a
critical time, considering that federal appropriations to our contracts fail
year after year to keep up with inflation.”
The
award will be paid directly to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation, a
consortium of 58 Alaska Native Tribes that provides health care across 75,000
square miles of roadless tundra to 30,000 residents in southwestern
Alaska.
YKHC
provides comprehensive in-patient and out-patient health care services through a
50-bed hospital, 4 subregional clinics and 45 small village-based clinics.
Specialty care patients are medivaced to Anchorage.
The
award comes at a time of severe health care shortages caused by steadily eroding
federal appropriations and sky-rocketing health care, personnel and energy
costs. Village fuel costs alone are between $5 and $7 per gallon.
YKHC is challenged by the region’s increasing health disparities. When
compared to all other U.S.
races, Alaska Natives suffer from the highest cancer mortality rates in the
country, dental decay rates 2.5 times the national average for small children,
and suicide rates that are 4 times the national average.
Since
the 1970s the Indian Health Service has awarded contracts to Indian Tribes to
operate federal health care facilities in place of the agency. But
beginning in the early 1990s, the agency began underpaying the Tribes’
contracts in order to fund other agency priorities.
This was a national
issue, and in 2005 the Supreme Court held in a case involving the Cherokee
Nation and the Shoshone Paiute Tribes that the agency’s conduct had been
illegal. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Defense Industrial
Association, and the Aerospace Industries Association, among others, filed a
supporting brief in that case. [YKHC’s attorney Lloyd Miller handled
that case.]
The
government apparently made the decision to deny Tribal contractors their funding
based upon legal advice that federal appropriations were insufficient to pay
these contracts in full, given other agency priorities.
Funds
to pay the award will be released from the Treasury during the next few months,
from the same account that pays all awards against the
United States.
There
are two dozen cases pending against the Indian Health Service, with most pending
in the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals, and a few others pending in federal
courts across the country. Hundreds of other claims have been filed and
are awaiting the agency’s action.
The
judgment can be reviewed at the following website:
www.cbca.gsa.gov/2007ISDA/STEEL_12-06-07_188-ISDA__YUKON-KUSKOKWIM_HEALTH_CORPORATION,_INC..pdf
#####
NOTES:
TEXT OF BOARD
ORDER
Yukon Kuskokwim
Health Corporation, Inc., was awarded a succession
of contracts,
compacts, and funding agreements under the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act, 25 U.S.C. §§ 450-458aaa-18, to administer various
programs, services, functions and activities of the Respondent, the Indian
Health Service (IHS), of the Department of Health and Human Services, in fiscal
years 1992 through 2004.
On May 23, 1996,
the Appellant presented the first of five claims for additional costs claimed to
be due under the contracts, compacts, and funding agreements.
Respondent’s
contracting officer did not act on the presented claims. On August 8,
2006, Appellant deemed the claims to have been denied and filed appeals.1
[1/ These cases
were docketed at the Interior Board of Contract Appeals (IBCA) as IBCA
4785-4791/2006. On January 6, 2007, pursuant to § 847 of the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-163, the IBCA
was terminated and its cases, personnel, and other resources were transferred to
the newly-established Civilian Board of Contract Appeals (CBCA). This case
was docketed by the CBCA as CBCA 188-
ISDA and
283-ISDA through 288-ISDA. CBCA 188-ISDA, 283-ISDA, 284-ISDA, 285-ISDA 286-ISDA,
287-ISDA, 288-ISDA.]
On December 7,
2007, the parties filed a joint request for entry of judgment and dismissal of
the appeal, which stated:
The parties
jointly stipulate that Judgment shall be entered in favor of
Apellant, Yukon
Kuskokwim Health Corporation, Inc. in the amount of
$25,000,000.00
plus interest under the Contract Disputes Act, 41U.S.C. §§
601-612, from
May 23, 1996, to the date of payment.
Pursuant to Rule
31 of the Board’s Interim Rules of Procedure, the
parties further
certify that they shall not seek reconsideration of, or relief
from, the
Board's decision, and they will not appeal the decision.
With respect to
the decision of the Board issued pursuant to this stipulation, the parties waive
their rights to reconsideration under Rule 26, rights to relief from judgment
under Rule 27, and rights to appeal the decision.
Accordingly, the
appeal is GRANTED IN PART. In
accordance with the parties’ joint stipulation, the Board awards the sum of
$25,000,000, plus interest from May 23, 1996, to the date of payment in
accordance with the Contract Disputes Act, to be paid from the permanent
indefinite judgment fund, 31 U.S.C. § 1304 (2000).
#####
For more
information about this and related cases contact:
Lloyd B. Miller,
Sonosky Chambers Sachse Miller & Munson,
Anchorage
,
Alaska
&
Washington
,
D.C. 907-229-6377 (cell) 907-258-6377 (office) (in
Anchorage
)
Labels:$25
million award to 58 Alaska tribes, YKHC
Chief Executive Officer Gene Peltola,
Yukon
Kuskokwim Health Corporation, Inc., U.S.
Indian Health Service, U.S.
Civilian Board of Contract Appeals, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Lloyd
B. Miller, Sonosky Chambers Sachse Miller & Munson
~~~~~
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