Sidley and its co-counsel at Sonosky Chambers secured an important U.S. Supreme Court victory on behalf of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, when the Supreme Court held that the federal government has not been properly funding Native American Tribes that administer their own healthcare programs and must pay Tribes for administrative costs expended to provide healthcare services under self-determination contracts — which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Specifically, in Becerra v. San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Court ruled that the Indian Health Service (IHS) must pay “contract support costs” not only to support IHS-funded activities, but also to support the Tribe’s expenditure of income collected from third parties and used to provide healthcare services under the contract. In concluding that the government must pay for those costs, the Supreme Court ensured that healthcare programs administered by Tribes will be able to provide care on a level with that provided by the IHS, and resolved a split between both the Ninth and Tenth Circuits and the D.C. Circuit.
The decision represents a significant victory for the self-determination rights of Native American Tribes, which are no longer penalized for choosing to provide their own healthcare with a lack of adequate funding.
Carter Phillips (Washington, D.C.), Virginia Seitz (Washington, D.C.), Eric McArthur (Washington, D.C.), and Chelsea Priest (Dallas) represented the San Carlos Apache Tribe, both in briefing in response to the petition for certiorari, and on the merits.
