The Affordable Care Act, the federal health care law that takes full effect in 2014, is expected to provide health insurance coverage to over 335,000 uninsured Oklahomans and reduce the state’s uncompensated health care costs by more than two-thirds , according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

Currently, some 597,000 Oklahomans, or 19 percent of the non-elderly population, lack health insurance. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the number of uninsured is projected to fall by 57 percent to 259,000, or 10 percent of the non-elderly population. Oklahoma’s 57 percent drop exceeds the national average of 48 percent and is the tenth highest drop among the states.

The researchers, who are health care policy experts at the Urban Institute, use the Health Insurance Policy Simulation Model to build projections of how coverage will be affected by the new law. For Oklahoma and for the nation, they find that the ACA will lead to more people with both public and private health insurance. Specifically, they project that: Read the rest of this entry »

The question of whether to require a prescription for the purchase of pseudoephedrine (the main ingredient in medications such as Sudafed) as a means to help combat the production of methamphetamine,  promises to be one of the  hotly contested issues of the 2012 legislative session. We invited a supporter and an opponent of the proposal to present their sides of the debate.

Jessica Hawkins: Time to say ‘enough is enough’

Jessica Hawkins is the Director of Prevention Services for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, which funds a network of Regional Prevention Coordinators providing community-based prevention services to all 77 Oklahoma counties. 

Substance abuse and untreated addiction must be a priority for Oklahoma.  It is the underlying cause for many of the negative consequences we are faced with in this state such as crime, incarceration, rising health care costs and broken families…issues that will not go away unless we start investing in the things that impact the root problem.

Want a great example? Methamphetamine.  Everybody knows about meth.  It is in the headlines every day.  If there is a picture that illustrates how drug use impacts us all, then this is it. Read the rest of this entry »

Rep. Earl Sears

Last week I participated in a StateImpact Oklahoma forum on the state budget with Rep. Earl Sears, the Chair of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee (R-Bartlesville),  and Sen. Tom Adelson (D-Tulsa).  An audience member asked the legislators what they would do to ensure that more individuals with mental illness were provided treatment in the community rather than in jails and penitentiaries.

Rep. Sears responded by saying that he is very supportive of the work being done by Commissioner Terri White and the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services to raise awareness about the prevalence and cost of mental illness. In particular, Rep. Sears praised the Department’s ‘Smart on Crime’ initiative‘ that uses evidence-based programs to reduce recidivism and decrease demand for correctional beds. By diverting non-violent offenders into programs such as drug court, mental health court, or other similar programs, Smart on Crime can reduce incarceration and ultimately save substantial tax dollars. The initiative, however, requires an upfront investment estimated at close to $100 million. And, Rep. Sears stated ruefully, we just don’t have $100 million to invest in Smart on Crime. Read the rest of this entry »

Doug Hall is Director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network at The Economic Policy Institute. This is a slightly revised version of a post that originally appeared on EPI’s Working Economics blog.

Later today, I will pass through two of our nation’s airports, where I will see ample evidence suggesting that we collectively place a very high priority on protecting our transportation infrastructure from harm. On my way through security, I will dutifully remove my shoes, and will remove from my pockets such benign items as a marker, an extra paper napkin from lunch, and the keys to my bike lock.

Yet throughout this same country, there are nearly 70,000 bridges that the U.S. Department of Transportation has identified as “structurally deficient.” We all recall with horror the 2007 collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis, yet there are thousands of such ticking time bombs throughout America today. In three states — Iowa, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania — there are over 5,000 bridges deemed to be structurally deficient. While not every one of those bridges is in imminent danger of collapse, these remain alarming numbers.

Fixing America’s crumbling infrastructure should be a top priority for every national, state, and local official throughout the nation. It’s easier than often is the case in public policy debates to connect the dots on this one:

• Crumbling infrastucture + alarmingly high rates of unemployment (particularly amongst construction workers) + interest rates at rates that remain at unprecedented low levels = jobs plan that helps put Americans back to work today, while laying the foundation for future economic growth and prosperity. Read the rest of this entry »

Matthew Norris is Board President of Fab Lab Tulsa, Inc. and is one of the principal founders of the organization. This post originally appeared on the Fab Lab Tulsa blog.

Fab Lab Tulsa opened on a hot September 13th in 2011 amid the bustle of central Tulsa’s Kendall-Whittier Neighborhood. It is incorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit operating a 3,500 square foot public access fabrication facility, making it one of the largest Fab Labs in the world. Its organization, its size and its location make Fab Lab Tulsa a truly unique enterprise.

This is all the more important because we are encountering a rapidly changing social and economic world. When dealing with change I like to quote the Executive Director of the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Randall Suffolk: “if you dislike change then you’re going to hate irrelevance.” Economically, our nation, our states and cities must confront the notion of irrelevance with a robust response. This response, I believe, should be in the form and practice of personal fabrication.

Personal fabrication, like in a Fab Lab or Hackerspace or Makerspace, is making things you need with tools which are accessible to you. This IS the next industrial revolution, except that it won’t be industrial, it will be personal. People will use and develop custom products or technology which will impact their lives in ways profound and ordinary…from creating your own smart phone to building a kitchen table so your family can enjoy a meal together. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Shinn is public policy analyst for Community Action Project of Tulsa County, which offers early learning and other programs for low-income children and families across Tulsa.  This post initially appeared on CAP’s Tulsa Initiative blog.

At Community Action Project (CAP), we provide direct services to Tulsa’s low-income families through high-quality early learning programs and programs that provide families with career, health, and financial supports. Through this work we’ve increasingly appreciated that public benefit programs are an essential support for Oklahoma’s low-income families. As a result, CAP has launched Better Benefits for Oklahoma Families, a series of assessments of Oklahoma public benefit programs.

Our first issue, released in November, looks at the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). CCDF  is a federal-state program to provide child care subsidies to low-income families with parents who work or are in school. CCDF gives families vouchers to pay for some or all of the child care for children up to age 13. Many families pay some of the cost of care as a co-pay that depends on their income and the number of children in care. In Oklahoma, CCDF is run by the Department of Human Services (OKDHS) and is known as child care subsidy. Read the rest of this entry »

Juan Pedroza is a Research Associate at The Urban Institute’s Center on Labor, Human Services and Population. This originally appeared on the Urban Institute Metro Trends blog and is reposted with permission. Juan’s research will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies.

Are immigrants from states passing tough immigration laws leaving in droves? Since Alabama grabbed headlines after passing a restrictive law, accounts and images of idle store fronts, vacancy signs, empty pew aisles, and dips in school enrollment swept the airwaves.  News coverage of similar experiments in Arizona, Oklahoma, and Georgia also featured accounts of imminent flight. The mass exodus storyline is tempting because it stokes immigration control advocates and outrages immigrant rights advocates.

But are these accounts reliable? The answer is more complicated than the headlines. As I wrote in an article for The Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies, growing evidence suggests that most immigrants (especially families with school-age children) are here to stay, except perhaps where local economies are particularly weak (click here for the forthcoming article). Read the rest of this entry »

Each year we try to rouse ourselves out of our post-Christmas, pre-New Year’s slumber long enough to pull together a Top 10 list of our most popular blog posts. As we said last year, if this organization, with its rich history dating all the way back to the early months of 2008, stands for anything, it stands for Tradition.  So without further ado: Our 10 blog posts that received the most hits in 2011. If you missed any of these the first time around, here’s another chance to take a look. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, the Board of Equalization certified a preliminary estimate of the revenues available for next year’s budget. The numbers confirm that while the worst of the fiscal crisis is over, the state is experiencing a slow, incomplete recovery that will fall far short of restoring key services to pre-downturn levels.

The preliminary FY ’13 estimates, developed by the Oklahoma Tax Commission and Office of State Finance, will form the basis for the Governor’s Executive Budget that will be delivered in early February; the Board will meet again in mid-February to provide revised estimates that will be binding on the 2012 Legislature. As we see in the chart below, collections to the General Revenue (GR) fund are expected to continue their recovery next year from their collapse during the recession of 2008-09. Next year’s GR is estimated at $5,540 million, which is 19.9 percent greater than FY ’10.  Yet next year’s revenues are expected to remain 7 percent below their levels of six years ago (FY ’07), even as the cost of providing services rises due to inflation, population growth, and increased caseloads. Read the rest of this entry »

Ken Miller is State Treasurer and a member of the the Task Force for the Study of Tax Credits and Economic Incentives.  This originally appeared as an article in the November Oklahoma Economic Report and is reprinted with permission. For an earlier blog post on tax credit reform by Task Force co-chair David Dank, click here, and see this piece laying out OK Policy’s position.

Critics contend that if politicians are good at anything, it is studying something to death. While this legislative interim has been full of task forces and studies, many promise to be more than just simple academic exercises. True, some are meant to garner attention for a favored issue. Others are meant to bolster an opinion. And some are honest undertakings in search of good policy.

And there are some with elements of each of the above. Facing a December 31 report deadline, the Task Force for the Study of Tax Credits and Economic Incentives is preparing final recommendations.

It is this task force member’s hope that rhetoric and ideology will play a subordinate role to sound policy and economic reality. The task force recommendations can impact our business climate for years to come and must take into account the competitiveness of states in attracting industry and economic growth. Read the rest of this entry »

This is part of an ongoing series of posts examining the Affordable Care Act, including previous posts on health insurance exchanges,  rate review and temporary high risk pools. For links to previous posts and additional resources, please visit the health care reform page on our website. 

Employer-based health insurance coverage is the single largest pillar of the American health insurance system. Unemployment and rising costs continue to erode employer-based coverage, but more than half of all Americans – 169 million -  are still insured through employers.  The federal tax code has long encouraged employers to provide coverage by making employer health care expenditures tax-deductible.

The new federal health care law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aims to expand health insurance coverage in the United States in part by strengthening employer-based coverage. The law provides sizable tax credits to small businesses (≤25 employees) that offer insurance. Beginning in 2014, large employers (≥50 employees) will have new responsibilities to provide coverage.  Known as the ‘play or pay’ provision, the law outlines that:

• If a large employer does not offer coverage and any of its employees receives a premium subsidy through a health insurance exchange, it will be subject to a fee of $2,000 per full-time employee (in excess of 30 employees);
• Large employers that offer only unaffordable coverage to workers will also be subject to a fee if employees receive subsidized coverage through an exchange;
• Large employers must automatically enroll employees into their lowest-cost plan if the employee does not sign-up for or opt-out of the employer’s coverage. Read the rest of this entry »

In September, the US Department of Agriculture released its annual report on household food security. For the 3-year period from 2008-10, an average of one in six Oklahoma households, 16.4 percent, experienced food insecurity. This means that “at times during the year, these households were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for foods.” This was the 6th highest rate in the nation, up from 14.6 percent for the period from 2004-06. Nationally, 14.2 percent of households were food insecure in 2o10.

Given Oklahoma’s population of 3.75 million, and assuming that households experiencing food insecurity are the same size as the average of all households, some 607,000 Oklahomans live in households that struggle with access to adequate food.  Imagine that on a Saturday afternoon this fall, the population in households that experience food insecurity in Oklahoma were all invited down to Norman and Stillwater to attend the football games.

The food insecure could fill OU’s Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium (capacity: 82,122) AND OSU’s Boone Pickens Stadium (capacity: 60,218)  four times over… with enough people left over to fill University of Tulsa’s H.A. Chapman Stadium (capacity: 30,000).

To find out ways to help fight hunger and food insecurity in Oklahoma, contact the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma or the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.

May everyone have a joyful and healthy Thanksgiving holiday.

Note: This is an updated version of a blog post we first ran in November 2010.