Articles

WovenLife puts seniors and young children in the same environment, resulting in significant social and developmental benefits for both. The Oklahoma City-based nonprofit takes that concept a step further by also integrating a large number of special-needs children.

Continuing the pattern of recent months, new data indicate Oklahoma’s economic growth is slowing, suggesting lawmakers may have far less growth revenue to spend next year, based on information provided by State Treasurer Randy McDaniel.

Higher education’s state appropriations have fallen by 39 percent since 2008, but total revenues have grown by more than 9 percent. This is in large part due to the ever-increasing tuition rates at Oklahoma’s colleges and universities.

Due to the passage of a ballot initiative and associated legislation that reduced the penalties for some property and drug crimes, hundreds of Oklahoma inmates were released on Monday following the largest single-day commutation of sentences in U.S. history.

Expanding Medicaid would greatly increase the federal government’s control over Oklahoma’s state budget. If Oklahoma chose to expand Medicaid it could increase the federal government’s share of the state budget to over 50 percent.

Polling conducted by Cor Strategies for OCPA shows that Oklahomans are strongly supportive of school choice even as they also support making the state’s education system the government’s chief spending priority.

Oklahoma has made progress toward a healthier pension system, but events in Chicago show the dangers of being complacent. Oklahoma can further establish a stable retirement system by adopting reforms to TRS similar to those adopted for OPERS.

To combat the problem of “surprise” medical bills, experts encouraged Oklahoma lawmakers to ban “balance billing” Oklahoma consumers and to increase health-care price transparency.

A review of Oklahoma news databases in the last century helps put all the recent “teacher shortage” headlines in perspective. Decade after decade, the great teacher shortage that will destroy our schools is always predicted, threatening, looming, descending, about to strike.

Some Oklahoma lawmakers have proposed a plan to expand Medicaid eligibility through the Insure Oklahoma program. But Oklahoma Senate Bill 605 and similar iterations, known as the “Oklahoma Plan,” are just a ploy to implement Obamacare Medicaid expansion in the Sooner State and shift hundreds of thousands of able-bodied, working age adults onto Oklahoma’s Medicaid rolls. The plan has three major components: (1) massively increase spending to implement Obamacare Medicaid expansion by way of premium assistance; (2) create a brand new welfare program for 628,000 able-bodied adults; and (3) propose a program that other states have found to be twice as expensive as predicted and with no measurable performance goals or changes in health outcomes. Oklahoma policymakers should reject Obamacare Medicaid expansion, SB 605, or any other plan to “access federal dollars” that expands welfare, and instead refocus their efforts on improving the Medicaid program for the most vulnerable and promoting meaningful health care reforms.