OKPOLICY.ORG
What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk is dedicated to this week’s events, publications, and blog posts.
This week at Oklahoma Policy Institute, we explained why turning down an enhanced federal match to expand Medicaid would be contrary to the state’s interests and lacking in basic compassion and common sense. The OK Policy Blog examined state laws and sentencing practices that condemn thousands into a downward spiral for one mistake.
Our take on the federal health care law was cited by KRMG, The Muskogee Phoenix, The Oklahoman, and The Tulsa World. David Blatt’s Journal Record column looked beyond the heated rhetoric to explain what the health care law really does. We featured a video on our blog about the lives of people living in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, before and after their homes, businesses, and community were destroyed by a fire started in anger by the city’s white residents.
In The Know, Policy Notes
- The National Healthcare Quality Report graded Oklahoma health care and delivery services among the worst in the nation for 2011.
- A Washington Post infographic shows who would be denied access to health insurance in states that opt of the health care law’s Medicaid expansion.
- Ezra Klein shows that of the 15 significant tax increases since 1950, the Affordable Care Act comes in 10th for size. Combined tax increases within the ACA are smaller than the tax increase approved by President Ronald Reagan in 1982.
- Nancy Folbre reexamines the economic costs and benefits of raising children.
- 820 – The number of employees the Department of Corrections workforce has lost since FY 2001; they’ve added 3,000 more inmates since then.
- $49,179,753 – Amount Oklahomans on Medicare have saved on their prescription medications since 2010 from rebates and discounts enacted by the Affordable Care Act
- 13 – Number of hate groups – groups that actively attack or malign a class of people for their immutable characteristics – in Oklahoma, 2011
- 71 percent – Percentage of uninsured adults aged 18 to 35 who were without health coverage because they couldn’t afford it, their employer didn’t offer it, or they’d been denied due to a pre-existing condition, 2011
- 67 – Number of Oklahoma counties, out of 77, where 2/3rds or more of the adults have not completed at least two years of education after high school, 2010
