HEALTHCARE/HHS/NATIVE AMERICANS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “HHS leaders want states to settle the contentious question of whether Native Americans should get jobs in order to keep their health care — a move that likely won’t resolve the underlying challenge to tribal sovereignty and was sparked by an unusual split between the agency’s politically appointed administrators and legal counsel. The agency’s position that tribes are a racial group and not separate governments — a determination by Trump administration lawyers that POLITICO first detailed last month — has raised concerns in Congress and alarmed the tribes, who say it reverses centuries of protections enshrined in the Constitution and upheld by the Supreme Court. HHS Secretary Alex Azar, the agency’s former general counsel, told tribal leaders at a meeting Thursday that state Medicaid administrators will be able to work with tribal governments on designing any employment requirements…The tribes had requested to be exempted from new Medicaid work rules being introduced in several states, citing their sovereign status. But the Trump administration rejected the request, saying in January it amounted to an illegal racial preference.”
-Dan Diamond and Rachana Pradhan, “Trump challenge to Native Americans’ health splits HHS, alarms Hill GOP,” Politico, May 10, 2018 7:54 pm