Oklahoma's health task force developing recommendations
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Associated Press
Published: November 10, 2008
Increasing the availability of health care services, improving the quality of Oklahoma's health care system and stressing disease prevention to decrease demand are among early recommendations by members of a legislative task force.
Following months of hearings, participants in the Health Care Reform Task Force have begun submitting ideas that may be included in legislation next year to address health care issues and decrease the number of uninsured Oklahomans.
"All of us involved in this process are well aware of the dismal health outcomes of the Oklahoma population and large number of people without health insurance," Oklahoma's health commissioner, Dr. James M. Crutcher, said in a letter outlining his recommendations to the task force.
But the state also suffers from an inadequate supply of health care workers, poor access to mental health and addiction services and issues involving the quality and cost of health services, Crutcher said.
Additional recommendations have been submitted by various other groups including The State Chamber, a statewide business and industry group that said it supports building on the employer-based health insurance system to improve quality, rein in costs and expand coverage.
"...Oklahoma has one of the highest per capita uninsured health insurance coverage levels in the nation. This places tremendous upward pressure on the premiums those with insurance pay as well as a strain on state appropriations in paying for those who access indigent care," the chamber said.
More recommendations will be aired by lawmakers on the task force when it meets again on Thursday.
The task force's co-chairman, Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove, said Monday that the group's hearings have demonstrated that the state is a leader in working to reduce the number of uninsured citizens.
"We're really kind of leading the pack and other states if anything are following what we're doing," said Cox, an emergency medicine physician at Integris Grove General Hospital.
State lawmakers in 2004 passed the Insure Oklahoma program, designed to help small businesses provide health care coverage for their low- and middle-income employees and reduce the state's estimated 650,000 uninsured residents.
It authorized the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, the state's Medicaid provider, to develop a program for adults, 19 to 64 years of age, whose income did not exceed 185 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $37,000 annually.
Under the program, the state pays 60 percent of insurance costs, the employer pays 25 percent and the employee pays 15 percent. The state's portion of the cost is funded by tobacco tax revenue and federal Medicaid matching dollars.
Currently, more than 13,000 people are enrolled in the Insure Oklahoma program, up from about 8,000 in March and 4,400 last fall.
But Cox has expressed frustration with delays in the authorization of federal funds for state-approved programs designed to expand the program.
Lawmakers have approved the All Kids Act, which allows families making up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level to qualify for government assistance in obtaining health care. Before, families had to make under 185 percent of the federal poverty line before their children qualified for Medicaid benefits.
"I hope that the federal people will look at what Oklahoma is doing," Cox said.
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