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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. E-mail your suggestions for In The Know items to gperry@okpolicy.org. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
Today you should know all but one of Oklahoma’s public colleges and universities requested tuition and fee increases for next year. OU President David Boren called for increased funding for Common and Higher Education and also endorsed reducing the number of school districts and public colleges and universities in the state. The Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences tied for the top spot in U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of the 10 Most Popular Medical Schools.
Six Oklahoma community health centers were awarded $3.6 million in federal grants under the Affordable Care Act. A new report from Families USA shows that thousands of American and hundreds of Oklahomans are dying every year because they don’t have health insurance. Read the full report here. In the Journal Record, David Blatt discusses inadequacies in Oklahoma’s health care system that will remain and become even more urgent if the Affordable Care Act is overturned by the Supreme Court.
The OK Policy Blog shares analysis on how Oklahomans would fare under competing tax plans from President Obama and Congressional Republicans. StateImpact Oklahoma reports that state energy regulators across the country are having a hard time keeping up with the booming natural gas industry, with many wells going uninspected due to inadequate staff and funding. Oil and gas drill operators are standing down today to discuss the recent rise in fatal accidents in Oklahoma’s oil fields.
State Rep. Mike Reynolds called on the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce to reveal who is funding a group created to rate Oklahoma judges. A deal pushed by the Tulsa Metro Chamber for a tax package to fund airport industrial complex improvements and other business incentives could be made public next week. A federal agency has pulled back its threat to withhold $50 million from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services for releasing information after a child dies from abuse and neglect.
Mike Connelly discusses evidence that recent criminal justice reforms are already beginning to falter due to lack of funding. Connelly previously did a guest post for the OK Policy Blog on the questions we should be asking about criminal justice reform. Forbes examines surprising economic success stories in the Great Plains, especially Oklahoma City.
The Number of the Day is the amount in cubic feet of the proven dry natural gas reserves in Oklahoma. In today’s Policy Note, the Economic Policy Institute discusses the troubling trend of young families falling even farther behind in savings.
In The News
Oklahoma colleges and universities propose tuition and fee increases
Students at all of Oklahoma’s public colleges and universities could see tuition and fee increases during the upcoming year if schools’ plans are approved. The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education heard tuition proposals from state colleges and universities at the regents’ board meeting Wednesday. The board is scheduled to vote on those proposals at a meeting Thursday. If the proposed budgets are approved, each public college and university will see at least some increase in its tuition and fees. Each college except one — Connors State College — is seeking an increase in tuition.
OU President David Boren endorses consolidation of school districts and universities
University of Oklahoma President David Boren says “if the people of Oklahoma knew, they’d care” about what he calls a crisis in education. Boren made his comments Wednesday during his presentation to the Regents for Higher Education on a proposed tuition increase for OU. Boren says he’s not against cutting taxes, but education has to be funded properly. And while he calls on increasing funding for Common Education and Higher Education, he also said reforms are needed, including potentially reducing the number of school districts and state-run colleges and universities. Boren says while you may keep the same delivery points – meaning campus locations – you could do away with administrative overhead by “bringing them together in some sort of partnerships.”
Read more from Oklahoma Watchdog.
OSU med school ranked most popular
The Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa tied for the top spot in U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of the 10 Most Popular Medical Schools released this week. OSU tied with the University of Kansas Medical Center for the No. 1 spot on the list. The rankings are based on the percentage of students who were accepted by the medical school who then made the decision to attend the school and enroll in classes there. In 2011, 85.7 percent of students who were accepted by the OSU school decided to enroll in classes there, according to the report. The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine ranked fourth in the report, with 79.7 percent of students who were accepted to the medical school enrolling and attending classes there.
Oklahoma gets $3.6 million in Affordable Care Act funding
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced federal Affordable Care Act grants Wednesday to six Oklahoma community health centers. In Oklahoma, a total of $3,623,279 was awarded to help expand access to care for 22,312 additional patients. The announcement came as tension mounts for a possible U.S. Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of key parts of the Affordable Care Act. The high court’s ruling on the future of the law’s individual mandate — and potentially the entire law — is expected before the end of the month. Nationwide, Sebelius announced a total of $128.6 million in grants to health centers. The grants will create 5,640 jobs for doctors, nurses, dental providers and many other staff supporting services to more than 1.25 million new patients, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Read more from The Tulsa World.
Study links early death, lack of health insurance
Thousands of American and hundreds of Oklahomans are dying every year because they don’t have health insurance, a study by an advocacy group shows. The report from Families USA, which backs President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, says that more than 26,000 American ages 25 to 64 died prematurely in 2010 because they didn’t have health insurance. That includes 452 Oklahomans. “Most people want health care coverage. They want to be protected. They want peace of mind. They want security,” said Ron Pollack, executive director Families USA. “But when premiums continue to escalate much faster than people’s incomes, it means more and more people get priced out of the health care that they might have been able to afford in the past.”
See also: Dying for coverage: The deadly consequences of being uninsured from Families USA
David Blatt: After the ruling
Any day now, the Supreme Court will issue its highly anticipated ruling on the federal health care law. If the Affordable Care Act is overturned in its entirety – an unlikely but not impossible outcome – the state will be absolved of its responsibility to expand Medicaid, improve regulatory oversight of insurers, and build an online insurance exchange. Such an outcome will no doubt lead to celebrations from opponents of “Obamacare.” But regardless of your political leanings, there is very little worth celebrating in the dire state of Oklahoma’s health care system. More than 600,000 Oklahomans are uninsured, mostly low-income working adults who aren’t offered coverage or can’t afford ever-escalating premiums. On average, one uninsured Oklahoman died every day in 2010 because they lacked access to timely, lifesaving care. These challenges will remain and become even more urgent if the federal law is tossed.
Read more from The Journal Record.
How Oklahomans fare under competing plans for the Bush tax cuts
Middle- and low-income Oklahomans would pay somewhat more in taxes under the Congressional Republicans’ approach to extending the Bush tax cuts than they would under President Obama’s approach, while high-income Oklahomans would pay far less under the Republican approach, according to a new analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ). National figures show the same pattern. Under President Obama’s proposal, all Americans would keep part of the Bush tax cuts, and only 1.4 percent of Oklahomans would lose any portion of those cuts. President Obama has also proposed expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit for low- to moderate-income working families.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Many oil and gas wells going uninspected due to understaffing
State energy regulators across the country are having a hard time keeping up with the booming natural gas industry. The surge is complicated by cash-strapped state budgets and increasing calls for drilling and fracking oversight, and state agencies in several states are struggling to keep up with well inspections, reports Stateline’s Jim Malewitz. In some states — including Oklahoma — inspectors tasked with new drilling operations also investigate abandoned wells, “many of which often go undocumented and can be hard to find,” Malewitz reports. Because of the lack of inspectors, scores of wells are going uninspected.
Read more from StateImpact Oklahoma.
Rise in fatal accidents at Oklahoma oil fields prompts stand down
Producers, service companies and other operators will stand down Thursday to discuss the recent rise in fatal accidents in Oklahoma’s oil fields. There have been nine work-related deaths and one drilling rig fire classified as a catastrophe because three workers were hospitalized since Oct. 1, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. David Bates, OSHA’s area director in Oklahoma City, this week called for all exploration and production companies in Oklahoma to participate in a voluntary safety stand down. The Mid-Continent Exploration and Production Safety Network and Oklahoma Department of Labor joined in the request.
Lawmaker wants funders of pro-chamber group named
State Rep. Mike Reynolds called on Fred Morgan and the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce to give a full accounting of who exactly is a part of the Oklahoma Civil Justice Council, a pro-chamber group created to rate Oklahoma judges. “It’s bad enough that the State Chamber is trying to buy elections in the State Legislature, said Reynolds, “Now Fred Morgan is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to intimidate judges, just because they ruled against the members of the State Chamber.” Reynolds continued, “Already we’ve seen the leaked memo which shows Chesapeake and Bancfirst are a part of this rating group. And it’s high time that Fred Morgan comes clean on all of the companies who gave money to bully Appellate and Supreme Court justices.”
Read more from the Shawnee News-Star.
Tax proposal for airport industrial upgrades and business incentives draws nearer
A deal on a possible tax package for airport industrial complex improvements and business incentives could be made public next week, Tulsa Metro Chamber officials said Wednesday. City, county and regional leaders are privately meeting again this week to reach a “consensus agreement” on what the potential package should include and how it should be funded, chamber spokeswoman LToya Knighten said. Ideas that have been floated to fund a package include pursing a limited extension of the Tulsa Vision 2025 sales-tax program or a full-blown Vision 2025 Part Two that would include a host of other projects and going after other tax shares or tax increases. To get something on the Nov. 6 general election ballot, any tax initiative must be delivered to the election board no later than Aug. 15.
Read more from The Tulsa World.
Federal agency backs off threat to withhold Oklahoma DHS funding
A federal agency has pulled back its threat to withhold $50 million from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services for releasing information after a child dies from abuse and neglect. The U.S. Children’s Bureau says in a June 11 letter that it no longer needs information previously requested and that it will work with the state on changes regarding openness in child-welfare reports. DHS spokeswoman Sheree Powell said officials take this to mean that the federal bureau will continue to review the information it has received. The bureau “recognized the need to provide clearer guidance and a consistent message to all states,” Powell said.
Read more from The Tulsa World.
Getting the implementation right
When we critiqued the latest “reform” effort in Oklahoma, we pointed out was that the “savings” to “reinvest” in the proposals made aren’t immediately available so the initial funds usually have to come from existing dollars which, because they are scarce, were the major reason for trying to reform to start with. Almost inevitably those dollars will have to come from existing operations of the state DOC. In OK, we noted that state officials there were very concerned that they would actually end up spending more, not less, than in the past because of increased responsibilities built on top of “savings” that weren’t likely to be what was projected because there was no reason to believe that the state would have put up the money supposedly to be saved since it never had in the past. Well, turns out OK did get some upfront money for its increased probation responsibilities, about half the amount that it also now has to spend on increased private prison spending mandated outside the reform but unfunded by the legislature. IOW, the reform didn’t really get funded.
Read more from JCO Consulting.
Previously: The questions we should be asking about criminal justice reform from The OK Policy Blog
Thunder on the Great Plains: Once written-off region enjoying remarkable revival
They may not win their first championship against Miami’s evil empire, but the Oklahoma City Thunder have helped to put a spotlight on what may well be the most surprising success story of 21st century America: the revival of the Great Plains. Once widely dismissed as the ultimate in flyover country, the Plains states have outperformed the national average for the past decade by virtually every key measure of vitality — from population, income and GDP growth to unemployment — and show no sign of slowing down. Rising commodity prices, the tapping of shale gas and oil formations and an unheralded shift of industry and people into the interior has propelled the Plains economy through the Great Recession.
Quote of the Day
Most people want health care coverage. They want to be protected. They want peace of mind. They want security. But when premiums continue to escalate much faster than people’s incomes, it means more and more people get priced out of the health care that they might have been able to afford in the past.
-Ron Pollack, executive director Families USA, on a new report showing that thousands of American and hundreds of Oklahomans are dying every year because they don’t have health insurance.
Number of the Day
22,769 billion
Amount in cubic feet of the proven dry natural gas reserves in Oklahoma, 4th most in the U.S., 2009
Source: Energy Information Administration
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
Young families fall even farther behind in saving
The typical American family saw its net worth fall 39 percent after the collapse of the housing bubble, according to newly-released Federal Reserve data. Younger families were hardest hit, with those in the 35-44 age group—the age when families start getting serious about saving for retirement—experiencing a 54 percent drop between 2007 and 2010. This is particularly worrisome because younger families were falling behind earlier cohorts even before the Great Recession. Furthermore, younger families should have been saving more to make up for declines in employer-provided pensions and Social Security benefits as the retirement age at which full Social Security benefits can be claimed has been rising.
Read more from the Economic Policy Institute.
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