Quotes of the Day

“The new bill expects me to be able to remain insured with a subsidy of $4,000. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that will never happen.”

– Beth, a 61 year-old self-employed woodworker who purchased health coverage with subsidies available through the Affordable Care Act. Under the House Republican health plan, her subsidy would be cut by two-thirds (Source)

“You know, we can’t choose which conditions we get, so I don’t know how we can choose which conditions we want to pay for.”

-Autumn Ryan, an advocate for Autism insurance reform, arguing that SB 478, a bill that would allow insurance companies from out of state to sell policies to people and businesses in Oklahoma, would endanger coverage for Autism (Source)

“It’s death by a thousand cuts that are not that big, but you put them all together and they are significant. Populations are declining in rural areas and folks in rural communities tend to be older, poorer and sicker than their urban counterparts.”

“I feel like people would be playing Russian roulette if they (insurers) are arbitrarily left to pick what coverages they want to provide. I don’t think they (proponents of relaxing mandates) understand it’s going to cripple the health care system, put us way back, and ultimately it’s going to be to the detriment of the patients.”

Sam Blackstock, Executive Vice President of the Oklahoma Academy of Family Physicians, on the dangers posed by two bills currently under consideration by the Oklahoma Legislature that would allow insurers to offer plans without certain coverage requirements. [Source]

“I think it would just be totally devastating. These families would be completely on their own. Our senior citizens that depend on these programs to help with just some of the basic repairs would be gone.”

– Neighborhood Housing Services Oklahoma Executive Director Roland Chupik on President Trump’s proposed federal budget, which would eliminate funding for a number of programs including the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps low-income families pay their energy bills, or repair or replace broken furnaces or air conditioners (Source). In SFY 2016, 87,770 Oklahoma households received winter heating assistance and 78,335 households received summer cooling assistance through LIHEAP (Source). 

“It’s stressful. It’s like juggling multiple plates that contrast with one another. Go hire, go find the best, but know that we might have to make some tougher decisions later on in a couple months; that’s hard to ask a principal to do. And at the same time, please be an instructional leader for our kids, get them ready to successfully complete the rest of the year.”

– Norman Public School Assistant Superintendent Jason Brown, on trying to balance hiring more teachers with low teacher pay and years of budget cuts (Source)

“If I didn’t have subsidies I couldn’t have insurance. I am conscious of just how desperate this is, I try not to let myself feel this way, but to live this way with real terror, real fear that the universe is going to fall apart around me.”

-Anna Holloway, a 60-year-old Norman resident who receives tax subsidies to purchase health insurance and is afraid of losing them under a Republican health care overhaul (Source)

“My question … as a practicing lawyer and someone who cares about our citizens’ rights to access the courts without tremendous financial burdens, is, ‘Should this Legislature stop making people pay to access the courthouse and we in the Legislature should properly fund our courts?’”

-House Minority Leader Scott Inman, criticizing several bills that would raise court fees in order to provide funding for the judicial system (Source)

“The district attorneys who opposed our reforms are very influential within the state legislature. They are good at scaring and pressuring and manipulating lawmakers into passing policies that ultimately benefit their position.”

-Oklahoma for Criminal Justice Reform Kris Steele, speaking about Oklahoma district attorneys’ efforts to roll back justice reforms passed by a large majority of Oklahoma voters as SQ 780 (Source).

“This idea that voters didn’t know what they were voting on is wrong. I’ve heard from people inside my district and outside who said, ‘I knew exactly what I was doing.’”

– Rep. Emily Virgin (D-Norman), arguing against HB 1482, which would reverse some criminal justice reforms approved by voters in November. Proponents of HB 1482 have argued that voters didn’t understand what they were voting for. HB 1482 passed through the state House on Thursday (Source)