Oklahoma Health Care Authority budget includes new revenues

Health Care Authority board approves budget, which includes new revenues from people paying for state-sponsored health insurance.

BY JULIE BISBEE | Published: July 9, 2010 Comment on this article

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Premiums paid by individuals enrolled in Insure Oklahoma is adding more than $7.7 million in new money to the Oklahoma Health Care Authority's budget, agency officials told board members Thursday.

The agency's revenue for this budget year, which began July 1, also includes $52 million from the health carrier access fee, a new 1 percent fee paid by insurance companies operating in the state.

The $4.5 billion budget for the agency that oversees Medicaid and Medicare programs includes a 1.8 percent increase in revenues from the previous year. Those include $2.8 billion in federal dollars, $187 million in federal stimulus dollars and $699 million in state appropriated dollars.

The authority pays claims to doctors, hospitals and nursing homes for the more than 700,000 people who are enrolled in Medicaid or Medicare. Last spring, the board approved a 3.25 percent cut in reimbursement rates for providers as a decrease in state revenue collections prompted budget cuts in all state agencies.

Those cuts will remain in place, said Juarez McCann, chief budget officer for the agency.

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