Credit: Brad Gregg According to the American Fitness Index compiled by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), OKC is the least fit city in the U.S. The. Least. Fit. According to the annual survey, Minneapolis is the healthiest city, based on the overall general wellness of its people and a wealth of other factors, […]
healthcare
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Ogling open government
They also respected the concept of representative government, which suggests that those elected by the people are empowered to do the people’s business. What emerged from those private discussions seems to have worked out pretty well, for 226 years so far. That’s why we should take a realistic view of the ongoing dust-up over who […]
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None dare call it ‘expansion’
Credit: Brad Gregg The Affordable Care Act, you might recall, allows states to get federal funds to expand Medicaid coverage for people earning less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Such a move would provide health insurance for almost 200,000 uninsured Oklahomans, but Gov. Mary Fallin rejected the federal dollars late last year. […]
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Coverage controversy
Protesters push for Medicaid expansion at a Feb. 5 rally at the state Capitol. Credit: Mark Hancock Oklahoma currently ranks near the bottom among states in terms of wellness. Both opponents and advocates of an expansion of the state’s Medicaid program say action is required to improve the state’s health. Fallin and other state leaders […]
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Medi-can’t
However, with Gov. Mary Fallin’s announcement last month that the state would not expand Medicaid, George will have to stick with her current plan for a while longer. That plan: Don’t get sick. “I tried with DHS (Oklahoma Department of Human Services) to get some kind of medical (insurance), but they turned me down because […]
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Health insurance? Fooey!
First, the Republican governor delayed implementing aspects of the ACA, otherwise known as Obamacare, in hopes that it would be rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. When that plan failed, she and others counted on the election of a Republican president to push its repeal. That plan didn’t work out so well, either. Finally, it’s […]
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Wait for it
Matt Robison Credit: Mark Hancock Ironically, the need for state development and control was Oklahoma’s rationale for turning down a $54 million Early Innovator Grant in 2011 — the highest federal grant awarded to only seven states viewed as “leading the way on building a better health insurance marketplace.” Yet action on a state-created exchange […]
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Why we need health care reform
There were more than 30 million Americans without health insurance of any kind. We spend more per capita on health care than any country on earth. The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in access/affordability/quality of health care among the nations of the world. We spend 25 percent more per capita than the country […]
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Medicaid expansion vital
According to Mike Fogarty, CEO of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, the uncompensated cost of treating the uninsured in Oklahoma exceeds $1 billion annually, most of it paid for by shifting the cost to insured families, while bad debt and charity care costs hospitals $365 million a year. Fogarty estimates that the $1 billion in […]
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Playing snow day roulette
It seems our Republican “leadership” has opted for a similar strategy regarding the establishment of a health care exchange. Rather than taking federal funds to establish the exchange, the governor, under right-wing pressure and the hope that the U.S. Supreme Court would strike down the entire law, rejected the funds. This risky move did not […]