The consultants recommended accepting federal Medicaid-expansion funding but using it to underwrite private insurance purchases for poor Oklahomans. SB 640 would have given these citizens a choice of private insurance or the present SoonerCare insurance plan. The Leavitt Partners wanted to push eligible clients to use the ACA’s health-insurance exchange and Indian Health Services. SB […]
medicaid expansion
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The gap
Rotunda of the state Capitol Credit: Shannon Cornman Despite rising income inequality in the U.S. — a growing gap spotlighted by last year’s presidential campaign and the Occupy Wall Street movement — some Oklahoma leaders have wanted to make the state’s already-regressive tax code even more so. Although the top 5 percent of the state’s […]
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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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Medicaid expansion is affordable, and vital
Under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, the federal government will pay the lion’s share of the cost for Oklahoma to extend SoonerCare coverage to most uninsured low-income adults. This would provide coverage to about 150,000 residents living near the poverty level. Expanding Medicaid would cut Oklahoma County’s uninsured population nearly in half, with more […]
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Medicaid expansion is unaffordable
In like manner, I don’t recall Gov. Mary Fallin receiving open records requests from curious journalists when taxes were hiked in 2011 to prop up LBJ’s Medicaid program in Oklahoma. It was only when she decided in 2012 not to expand Medicaid that the watchdogs started barking. In any case, Gov. Fallin should be applauded […]
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Medicaid expansion is the new SQ 744
Public- and private-sector leaders joined the campaign to publicize its unsustainable structure and potential harm to core services. Voters overwhelmingly rejected it. Oklahoma lawmakers now face a similar scenario. The Affordable Care Act provides for a massive expansion of Medicaid, allowing states to expand Medicaid to include many individuals below 133 percent of the federal […]
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Pricey Medicaid expansion
Tiffee assumes that the money collected from hospitals in the form of a 2-percent provider fee will not be passed on to those using non-Medicaid forms of payment for hospital services. This assumption is ridiculous. Of course the hospitals will pass it on to their paying customers. Tiffee and those who support his position believe […]