Oklahoma joins Georgia becomes 2nd State to offer alternative to President Obamas health plan
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Several states are considering membership including Texas & Missouri. Proponents say it is a more responsive less bureaucratic alternative to President Barack Obamas health care initiatives. Opponents say its a pipe dream
that seeks to tinker with the nations health care funding mechanism for political reasons. Either way Oklahoma has become the second state to take advantage of the alternative known as the Health Care Compact.
Rather than entrusting the federal government with administration of a bureaucratic nightmarishly large system what were seeking to do is join with the other states in creating a regional health care delivery system said Sen. Clark Jolley R-Edmond author of the Oklahoma compact legislation.
State governments are more responsive to the needs of citizens and are more efficient with money Jolley said.
I dont think Oklahoma wants to be in the business of administering health care but its preferable to federal government administering health care Jolley said.
Its one of those situations where you have the option to put your head in the sand and do nothing in response to the federal governments (health care act) or you can try to come up with alternatives and solutions to try to provide a different option that may be better and more preferable to the state.
If approved by Congress the plan would turn most federal health care funding into block grants to states which would be free to set their policies on how that money would be spent.
Opponents of the proposal say Congress will never agree to the plan.
This is the biggest fairy tale I have ever seen State Rep. Scott Inman D-Oklahoma City said.
Its a bad law. It will never become effective. The federal government will never grant us this authority. It has never done it in the past. Its not going to do it
now.
During state House debate over the proposal Inman D-Oklahoma City said he would have the proposal bound so that he could put it between his daughters copies of Winnie the Pooh and Cinderella.
Eric OKeefe chairman of the national organization pushing the proposal said Oklahomans would do a better job of determining how to distribute health care money.
I think the people of Oklahoma through their Legislature would do a better job than the federal bureaucracy he said. Taking care of our people is not something to be delegated to folks 1500 miles away.
The question for Oklahomans is are you better off being taxed and sending your money to Washington and having it come back with strings on it or just keeping it and running it internally?
OKeefe said he figures it will take about 20 state legislatures accepting the compact to force the issue in Congress. That could happen as soon as March although it may take another congressional election cycle for the votes to be there.
If the proposal is approved by Congress each of the states would have to approve the compact again.
He said no comparable example exists of a federally funded program that leaves so many details to the states.
This is an extremely ambitious proposal deliberately so he said. It would be a
huge surrender of power and money from the federal government. It would only happen under political and financial duress.
The financial duress is coming no matter what we do. The political pressure were working with grass-roots folks to create OKeefe said.
What would a Health Care Compact do?
If approved by Congress the compact would mean federal funding for health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid would be sent to the states as block grants.
The states would be guaranteed as much funding as they received in 2010 adjusted annually for inflation and population changes.
The states would be released from federal health care regulations including the federal health care initiative and
U.S. Food and Drug Administration restrictions on drugs. States could agree to follow federal laws or design their own systems.
Veterans Affairs hospitals and Indian Health Care facilities would not be affected by the change.
