Articles

The Oklahoma Health Care Authority has proposed a plan to “rebalance” Medicaid eligibility in the Sooner State. But this “rebalancing” is really just an Obamacare expansion by another name.

Oklahoma’s budget crunch has been much in the news lately. But imagine how much worse the situation could be.

As state policymakers work to reduce prison incarceration rates and their resulting costs, there is a second way to address this issue from the bottom up. Offenders whose crimes do not merit prison time are still clogging county jails across Oklahoma, driving costs at the local level. While legislators and the governor grapple with ways to trim prison populations, we already have a ready-made program in place to begin a similar local effort in our 77 counties.

The predictions were dire. Nursing homes and hospitals would close. Pregnant women in labor wouldn’t receive care. Thus the story told by state agency officials and lobbyists for big hospital corporations. The only way to prevent catastrophe was to raise taxes and massively expand Medicaid to able-bodied adults.

Oklahoma has embraced the national revolution of educational choice—it’s one of 30 states with private school choice programs. As the state has now moved to embrace the best kind of school choice, Education Savings Accounts, government unions and their allies have howled all the louder that choice is awful. But if that’s so, why do they have to keep running away from the facts? What are they afraid of?

Today in Forbes, OCPA president Jonathan Small, along FGA's Jonathan Ingram and Josh Archambault, explains why OHCA's Medicaid "rebalance" plan would put the truly needy in danger and create perputual budget crises.

The Obama administration’s recent decree – which would, among other things, allow boys into girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms and showers – has generated predictable outrage and pushback. Oklahoma lawmakers are reportedly considering legislation that would protect students’ privacy.

As details emerge about the Oklahoma Health Care Authority’s Obamacare Medicaid expansion rebalancing proposal, the most vulnerable Oklahomans, policymakers, and taxpayers should be very concerned.

When the Board of Education that governs Oklahoma City Public Schools recently voted to sever ties with Superintendent Rob Neu, there was much media speculation about why. After all, the board had welcomed Neu less than two years earlier and voted to pay him $240,000, plus a hefty $65,000 in benefits. It’s an understatement to say that Neu’s tenure has been filled with turmoil. For example, Neu hastily led the district in revamping its student disciplinary system. Neu gleefully reported that student suspensions were down. Unfortunately, a survey of district teachers showed that classroom chaos was up.