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Plans for Navajo Medicaid entity stall in leadership dispute

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Posted at 9:55 PM, Mar 30, 2020
and last updated 2020-03-31 00:55:06-04

Plans for a Navajo Nation entity to manage Medicaid on parts of the reservation are up in the air over disagreements among tribal leaders.

A tribal corporation has been touting a plan that would incorporate traditional healing, food boxes and customer service in the Navajo language.

But it hit another snag last week when tribal President Jonathan Nez vetoed a resolution that he says unconscionably tried to capitalize on the spread of the coronavirus.

Nez says the resolution wasn't an emergency as written and the corporation wasn't set up to manage health care.

Tribal lawmakers had approved the corporation's efforts to administer Medicaid on the New Mexico portion of the reservation.