MAKING A DIFFERENCE FOR OKLAHOMA CHILDREN

I've finally found something our Oklahoma legislators did right. Last session with bi-partisan support they passed SB 424, titled the All Kids Act. This act will enable over 40,000 additional Oklahoma kids to have health insurance through the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). NO NEW TAXES WERE PASSED TO FUND THIS ACT! The All Kids Act will use 8 million dollars in already collected tobacco taxes and bring in an additional 30 million dollars in federal funds.

Passage of this act means families who are self employed or working for employers who do not provide group health insurance will be able to have health insurance for their kids even if some of them suffer from chronic illnesses like asthma or diabetes which makes many of them uninsurable in today's insurance market.

Working families paying ALMOST $3 a gallon for gas to get to work and $4 a gallon for milk often don't have the resources to pay $1000 a month for family health insurance which is what the average non group policy costs in the state of Oklahoma for a family of four.

Our state Insurance Commissioner, Kim Holland recently stated that the uninsured increase the costs of health insurance to both businesses and families by $1781.00 a year. The high cost of health care in general is impacted to a great extent by the millions of families who end up unable to pay their medical bills. Hospitals and doctors end up having to add this to their cost of doing business so they have to increase their prices. Spiraling medical and insurance costs are costing each and every one of us lots of money and I appreciate any action that can help with that.

When children do not make regular visits to the doctor, or receive medical attention when it is needed, they risk minor illnesses becoming major ones. Adequate health care can mean the difference between a child growing and thriving and one who misses a lot of school, falls behind, and can even eventually end up needing state aid. Healthy children are better prepared to learn in school and better equipped to succeed in life. Children are our state's most important asset, and we should do everything we can to ensure that they succeed.

Oklahoma Tied For Last Place

I just added a new link under Healthcare for a great article that a medical professional sent me from the 7 June 07 issue of Business Week called "The Sorry States of Health Care".

Sadly but not surprisingly Oklahoma is tied with Mississippi for the title of the worst healthcare in the United States.

The article explains that under current Federal law, states have full authority over how health care is delivered, paid for and monitored. States regulate insurers and hospitals. They run the public health systems and most importantly they decide who is and who isn't covered by Medicaid and SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program). To me that means that Oklahoma can do better if they work at it.

During the last legislative session, the Governor was able to increase the number of insured Oklahoma children in SCHIP by 40,000. He was able to accomplish this despite strong opposition from Lance Cargill, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

One would think that the state legislature would have been eager to fund this new initiative considering that they are always saying how important children are to the future of Oklahoma. They also say education is important, but again education funding was finalized too late for the school administrations to effectively budget for the coming year. Most people realize that healthy children learn better and the only way Oklahoma can ever help all children learn better is to be sure they are healthy enough to learn.

Well, our state legislature barely passed the bill. The Speaker of the House, Lance Cargill voted against the bill and also tried to have it killed in committee. His kids have good insurance so I guess that's all that counts to him.

I am convinced that the only way we will ever have Better Oklahoma Government is if we start electing better Oklahoma legislators.

Taxpayer Abuse by the Legislature

Since Republicans have become the majority in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, there has been a marked increase in the passing of unconstitutional bills which have resulted in outside organizations suing the state to stop the legislation.

Guess who pays for those lawsuits? It's the Oklahoma taxpayer who foots the bill for the defense regardless of who wins and if the plaintiff wins they pay their costs too. Sadly the legislator who introduced the offending legislation goes on their happy way without any penalty.

We maintain that all legislation introduced should be screened by the legislative staff for federal and state constitutional validity and if the legislation shows any indication of not being up to constitutional muster, it should be mandated that the Rules Committee in the legislature must review it before it can go to a vote of the legislature. The Rules Committee must then provide debate on both sides of the constitutional issue and can only send the bill forward if it receives a two thirds vote by that committee. This legislative rules change would save Oklahoma taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Legislative action of any kind already costs the taxpayer thousands of dollars for hearings, paperwork, and documentation. When constitutionally suspect legislation is adopted and signed into law, hundreds of thousands of dollars will be spent by government attorneys defending the measure before the Courts strike it down. If the courts strike it down, the state most usually pays for the attorney fees of the plaintiff as well.

Changing the rules to require a two thirds vote of the Rules Committee would avoid silly partisan debate over proposals which are beyond the power of the Legislature. This would also avoid grandstanding by partisan legislators who's only real purpose is to beef up their base.

Frankly it might also be wise to even penalize lawmakers who introduce unconstitutional bills that fail to obtain the necessary support in the Rules Committee. Perhaps by reducing the limit on the number of bills they are allowed to introduce each session by 5 for ever 1 denied by the Committee?

Oklahoma legislators spend way too much time debating and passing legislation that really has no relationship to legislative responsibility. If this rule was implemented, it would be a lot easier for them to get their business completed by the mandatory May 25th adjournment date. Instead of getting BOGGED down in issues that are really out of their scope of responsibility.

Grandstanding Again

Our great legislature is again grandstanding instead of taking care of business. They have sent a bill on illegal immigration to the Governor which will be a great vehicle for bankrupting the state as well as creating general havoc.

The bill requires all illegal immigrants who have been arrested under the many new Oklahoma immigration laws to be held in jail until the Feds pick them up. Oklahoma already has overflowing prisons and jails. Additional prisoners will mean lots more prisoners in an already crippled system. If this bill passes and is enforced, our prisons will soon be under federal oversight again for overcrowding and a large portion of my taxes will be going to fix the problem created by a bunch of yahoos who only want to grandstand instead of work on the problems for which they have real responsibility.

Illegal immigration is a federal problem. There are lots of federal problems that need fixing, but most of us are smart enough to know they are out of our realm of possibility or responsibility. Oklahoma could try to solve the problem of not enough troops to send to Iraq by initiating a state wide draft. Obviously that would be illegal (as this new immigration bill may well be), costly, and basically ineffective because of the vast numbers needed versus what the state could contribute.

If our legislators are too dumb to realize the repercussions of their latest effort, we are in a world of hurt. If they are too cynical and self serving to care, we're not much better off.

Oklahoma Government Continually Bogged Down

It's almost May and the Oklahoma's legislature still doesn't have a budget completed. The Republicans are fighting the Democrats and the Governor is fighting both parties in the Senate but only the Republicans in the House.

The Republican controlled House won't even hear a Democratic bill even if they agree with it. The Senate won't hear any bill unless it has a sponsor from both parties. They all act more like adolescents than statesmen.

As usual the Republicans vote as a block and goose step to the commands of the party leadership. About two thirds of the Democrats vote with the Republicans so in essence they are the ones running the state.

The Republicans want to again cut taxes for big business and big pocketbooks in a state that can't raise taxes without a vote of the people.

They are also determined to run every abortion doctor out of the state and this year they even went so far as to have the legislature write a set of rules for what emergencies would truly qualify as ones that would endanger a pregnant woman's life and qualify her to legally have an abortion. The state medical association came out in droves to object to the bill and the governor vetoed it . The holier than thou folks are screaming to high heaven and calling him and anyone who voted to uphold the veto baby killers and worse.

The governor also vetoed the latest so called tort reform bill which was another favorite of the Republicans. The Republicans are determined to make sure that poor people who can't afford a lawyer don't get their day in court. They have convinced the doctors, who should be smart enough to realize that lawsuits are not the only thing that affects the price of their malpractice insurance, that greedy lawyers are their nemesis. It seems obvious to me that someone should be looking at the continually increasing and huge profits of the insurance companies but so far, they are still operating completely without oversight.

The governor didn't veto the bill that protects animal waste from ever being classified as toxic waste even though our eastern Oklahoma lakes and rivers have already been polluted by the large concentration of poultry farms in that area. Other sections of the state have also lost water quality because of corporate hog farms. If you check out the campaign contributions of the corporate farms and their management, it is a little easier to understand why this sorry bill was passed without much opposition.

The majority of the press in Oklahoma is so far to the right, they would sink a ship if they were on one. That means they only report good things about our radical Republican controlled legislature.

The vast majority of legislation in Oklahoma is now being pushed forward by the big business interests that forked up the 70 to 100 thousand dollars now needed to run for the legislature. Meanwhile, most of Oklahoma is watching their 100 channels of entertainment and sports and completely oblivious to the really bad government we are getting.

The fruits of some of that bad government are becoming apparent even to people who have had their eyes glued to a TV set for the last few years. In an effort to educate and energize Oklahoma Citizens about what is really happening in the legislature, we have formed the organization, Better Oklahoma Government (BOG).

We hope that bogged down will soon have a new meaning.