This is the second of what will be an ongoing series of posts looking at the impact of the new federal health care reform law on Oklahoma and Oklahomans. The first looked at how reform will mitigate the public benefits “cliff effect”. For full information on health care reform, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation website is excellent.We encourage your contributions as comments or as  a guest blog.

The passage of the new federal health care law represents a monumental shift in the nation’s health care delivery system that will unfold over the coming years. States and state governments will be effected by the new law in myriad ways, only some of which are recognized at this early stage. One issue that has caused some concern for state governments, particularly in the context of the deep and prolonged state fiscal crisis, is the obligation that states will eventually be asked to assume for a portion of the cost of covering the newly insured.

With the passage of health care reform, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority has estimated that an additional 250,000 Oklahomans will be newly qualified for Medicaid, the nation’s primary health insurance program for the poor, jointly financed by the federal and state governments.  Under the law, all working-age  adults with household incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level – around $24,000 for a family of three in 2009 – will become eligible for Medicaid effective in 2014.  Read the rest of this entry »