Category: Media

Oklahoma lawmakers rack up $1.3M travel bill (NewsOK)

By Rick Green Oklahoma Senate and House members racked up more than $1.3 million in travel expenses in the 2015 fiscal year, much of it to cover mileage and lodging.    The average legislator got about $8,700 in expense money, plus… Read more [More...]

A license to wait (The Tulsa Voice)

By Barry Friedman On 21st Street between Southwest Boulevard and Chandler Park, along this testosterone-filled road of salvage yards, warehouses and surplus supply stores, sits the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety. It is an unremarkable building, as it should be.… Read more [More...]

Don Millican: We have to breathe, even if it is ‘Obama-Air’ (Tulsa World)

By Don Millican If oxygen was to be renamed “Obama-Air,” I am convinced that we in Oklahoma would hold our collective breath and refuse to breathe. I get it. As a state, we do not like the guy. It is… Read more [More...]

Legislators to study privatization of Commerce Department (Journal Record)

By Dale Denwalt OKLAHOMA CITY – Business recruitment might be more efficient if the state privatizes all or part of the Department of Commerce, a lawmaker said. State Rep. Leslie Osborn has looked at the model adopted by Arizona, which… Read more [More...]

Health-care forum panelists weigh in on benefits, political unlikelihood of expanding Medicaid in Oklahoma (Tulsa World)

By Mike Averill Panelists at a health-care forum Wednesday discussed reasons the state should accept federal dollars to expand Medicaid, particularly through the Insure Oklahoma program, and the unlikelihood of that happening. Expansion would provide insurance to more than 100,000… Read more [More...]

New OK Policy report examines barriers to affordable housing for Oklahomans with felony convictions

A new report from Oklahoma Policy Institute, titled “Barriers to Affordable Housing for Oklahomans with Felony Convictions,” shows how Oklahoma’s major public housing assistance programs exclude people with felony records from getting help. The report also discusses alternative models used… Read more [More...]

State needs to embrace ACA, health care execs say (Journal Record)

By Kirby Lee Davis TULSA – The U.S. Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell ruling leaves Oklahoma little choice but to embrace the Affordable Care Act, several health care executives told a Tulsa Regional Chamber audience Wednesday. But such views ignore… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma continues to rank high for state and local sales-tax rates (Tulsa World)

By RANDY KREHBIEL Oklahomans continue to pay some of the highest combined state and local sales taxes in the country, according to an annual report by the Tax Foundation. At 8.78 percent, Oklahoma’s average combined sales-tax rate was slightly higher… Read more [More...]

Up Ahead, Turnover of Insurers on Health Market (Oklahoma Watch)

By Warren Vieth Two private health insurance companies participating in the Affordable Care Act market in Oklahoma are expected to leave the program next year, while another big insurer wants in. The shuffle, which would occur on Jan. 1, illustrates… Read more [More...]

Supreme Court Obamacare ruling: Reactions from Oklahoma (The Frontier)

By Ziva Branstetter For Julie Alexander, $8.10 per month bought a lot of piece of mind. That’s what she had to pay this year for a health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act, after subsidies provided by the law.… Read more [More...]