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In The Know is a daily synopsis of Oklahoma policy-related news and blogs. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
Today you should know that Oklahoma mental health professionals are dealing with questions following the school shooting in Connecticut. The Mental Health Association in Tulsa said Tuesday it’s flat out wrong to assume that everyone with a mental illness is violent, and it’s also wrong to assume we’re doing everything we can in Oklahoma to treat them. An expert on coping with and trying to understand traumatic events will hold a public forum today at Norman Regional Hospital. Another report of a threat at Bartlesville High School has led administrators to close all the district’s schools.
The board chairman for the Oklahoma Health Care Authority corrected the record on payment error rates for Oklahoma’s Medicaid program, which at 1.24 percent are among the lowest in the nation. The OK Policy Blog discussed how Governor Fallin’s healthcare decisions and AG Pruitt’s lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act threaten to prevent hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans from gaining access to health care.
Some Republican members of Oklahoma’s congressional delegation said they were ready to raise tax rates for upper-income taxpayers to avoid higher rates for the vast majority of people. NewsOK writes that lawmakers should reject a push by Oklahoma district attorneys to limit the new parole law. Chesapeake Energy is selling off more acreage and wells in Oklahoma to offset a looming budget gap.
The Number of the Day is the inches of rain needed by the end of 2012 to bring central and northeast Oklahoma near normal levels of annual rainfall. In today’s Policy Note, the Urban Institute examines the massive growth and increasing cost of the federal prison system and finds that reductions in sentence lengths – particularly for drug offenders – can most directly contain future growth.
In The News
After Newtown, OK mental health services under scrutiny
As more victims in Newtown, Connecticut are laid to rest, the focus in cities across America including in Green Country has turned to preventing a tragedy like this from happening again. Right now, there are many questions about the mental health of Adam Lanza, the man who shot 27 people to death before turning the gun on himself. Mental health experts in Tulsa understand the questions, and when something like this happens, they expect them. The Mental Health Association in Tulsa said Tuesday it’s flat out wrong to assume that everyone with a mental illness is violent, and it’s also wrong to assume we’re doing everything we can in Tulsa to protect those people.
Norman hospital to sponsor public forum on school shootings
The Norman Regional Health System will hold a community forum Friday on “Coping with Connecticut.” Dr. Farhan Jawed, medical director of the hospital’s Behavioral Health Unit, will speak about the mass killings in Newport, Conn. Twenty-six people — 20 of them children — were killed Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The perpetrator, a lone gunman, committed suicide, and police said he killed his mother before his shooting rampage at the school. The forum for hospital employees and the public will be from noon to 1 p.m. in the Education Center auditorium at Norman Regional Hospital, 901 N Porter Ave.
Bartlesville schools to be closed today because of ‘credible’ threat
Another report of a threat at Bartlesville High School has led administrators to close all the district’s schools on Wednesday, the school district told parents late Tuesday. The district received “credible reports of a threat at the high school,” according to messages sent to parents by phone and email around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. The message, from Superintendent Gary Quinn, said school officials “expect the situation to be stabilized by the time students are scheduled to return to school on January 2, 2013.” “During the break, we will be working together with the local police department to evaluate current security at all sites and provide recommendations for the safety of our students,” Quinn said.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Program integrity is first for Oklahoma Medicaid
“Red (ink) tape: Health bureaucracies hampered by fraud” (Our Views, Dec. 6) paints Medicare, Medicaid and Oklahoma providers with a broad brush. As chairman of the board for the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, the state’s Medicaid agency, I’d like to clear up some misconceptions. Oklahoma Medicaid has achieved one of the lowest payment error rates in the nation at 1.24 percent. The national average is approximately 8 percent. We combat fraud beginning when a provider signs a contract with us and continuing as we provide constant education about billing and closely review claims.
What Governor Fallin’s healthcare decisions mean for Oklahomans
Just before Thanksgiving, Governor Mary Fallin announced a pair of important decisions related to the Affordable Care Act. She said that Oklahoma would not participate in the expansion of Medicaid for low-income adults and would not create its own state-based health insurance exchange. Where do these decisions leave Oklahomans? The Affordable Care Act provides two primary mechanisms to extend health insurance coverage to most of the 48 million Americans, and 694,000 Oklahomans, who are currently uninsured. The first is to extend Medicaid coverage to working-age adults with incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty level, roughly $30,000 per year for a family of four.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Some Oklahoma Republicans ready to support higher taxes on wealthy
With tax hikes on all Americans looming in two weeks, some Republican members of Oklahoma’s congressional delegation said Tuesday they were ready to vote on raising rates for upper-income taxpayers to avoid higher rates for the vast majority of people. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, and Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, said they could support a plan floated by House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday to extend the current tax rates for all of those making less than $1 million a year, while allowing the rates for income above $1 million to rise to levels of a decade ago. If Congress takes no action on individual income tax rates, tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 — and extended in 2010 — would expire at the end of this month.
NewsOK: Oklahoma lawmakers should reject effort to limit new parole law
Oklahoma voters made it clear in November that they believe the state Pardon and Parole Board can do its job without the governor serving as a backstop on every, single case. At least one Oklahoma prosecutor thinks the voters were duped. Cleveland County District Attorney Greg Mashburn says he doesn’t think voters understood what sorts of inmates could be paroled under State Question 762, which removed the governor from the parole process for nonviolent inmates. Mashburn wants the Legislature to look for ways to limit SQ 762’s impact by, for example, expanding the list of violent crimes. As the Tulsa World reported, 63 crimes are on the books that are classified as violent, and thus require the governor’s approval in parole cases. How many more would make Mashburn and his fellow prosecutors comfortable?
Chesapeake selling more acreage in Oklahoma, Texas
Chesapeake Energy Corp. has two more listings with broker Meagher Energy Advisors as it continues to sell assets to offset a looming budget gap. The Oklahoma City-based oil and natural gas company has raised $11.1 billion from asset sales this year. Chesapeake is trying to bring in $14 billion, plus another $19 billion next year, to fund its ongoing operations and reduce debt. Chesapeake is selling more than 37,000 net acres in four southern Oklahoma counties and 14 wells in Grayson County, Texas. The Oklahoma acreage — in Love, Carter, Bryan and Marshall counties — includes 42 wells, with net sales of 1.443 million cubic feet of natural gas and 6 barrels of oil a day over the past year.
Quote of the Day
In the state of Oklahoma, if you don’t have high end insurance, good luck. You’re going to have a very, very difficult time accessing (help for your illness) because we have such a shortage of it.
–Michael Brose, Executive Director of the Mental Health Association in Tulsa, on the shortage of mental health beds and funding in Oklahoma.
Number of the Day
9 to 12
Inches of rain needed by the end of 2012 to bring central and northeast Oklahoma near normal levels of annual rainfall
Source: National Weather Service
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
The Growth & Increasing Cost of the Federal Prison System: Drivers and Potential Solutions
The federal prison population exceeds 218,000, a tenfold increase since 1980. This massive growth is projected to continue and is accompanied by increasing costs, which account for 25% of the Department of Justice’s budget and edge out other important public safety priorities. This brief describes the main drivers of the federal prison population, half of whom are drug offenders. Front-end decisions about who goes to prison and for how long have the greatest impact, suggesting that reductions in sentence lengths -particularly for drug offenders – can most directly contain future growth.
Read more from the Urban Institute.
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