Topic: Health

Health Department cuts mean increased disease and risk of death (Capitol Updates)

By: Steve Lewis
March 18, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Steve Lewis served as Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1989-1991. He currently practices law in Tulsa and represents clients at the Capitol. You can sign up on his website to receive the Capitol Updates newsletter by email.… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma’s Proposed Medicaid Cut Won’t Pass Federal Muster (Guest Post: Jesse Cross-Call)

By: Guest
March 15, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Jesse Cross-Call is a Policy Analyst in the Health Policy division of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This post previously appeared on the Center’s Off the Charts blog. Oklahoma’s Senate is considering legislation, which its House passed last… Read more [More...]

Sayre, OK loses its hospital (Neglected Oklahoma)

By: Camille Landry
March 2, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Camille Landry is a writer, activist, and social justice advocate who lives in Oklahoma City.  This post is part of our “Neglected Oklahoma” series, which tells the stories of Oklahomans in situations where the basic necessities of life are hard… Read more [More...]

Success story: Oklahoma significantly improves uninsured rate for Hispanic children

By: Amanda Rightler
February 25, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Amanda Rightler is a senior at the University of Tulsa studying chemistry and economics. In addition to interning at OK Policy, she participates in undergraduate chemistry research and enjoys volunteering in the community.  Recent data gives encouraging news on health… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma thinks the unthinkable with health care cuts

By: David Blatt
February 23, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Should Oklahoma strip Medicaid health care coverage from people least able to afford insurance on their own? In a state that trails most of the nation in uninsured rates and health outcomes, who could defend this? Should the Department of… Read more [More...]

Push to privatize Medicaid could disrupt care for seniors and Oklahomans with disabilities

By: Carly Putnam
February 22, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
As directed by a law created last year, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority (OHCA) spent much of the fall exploring options to move the roughly 180,000 SoonerCare patients who are aged, blind, or have one or more disabilities (ABD) into… Read more [More...]

‘Complete Streets’ can be a path to a healthier, more prosperous Oklahoma

By: Elizabeth Armstrong
February 10, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Elizabeth Armstrong was a Fall 2015 OK Policy intern. She is pursuing a Master’s degree in Geography at Oklahoma State University where she also works as a Graduate Research Assistant. In ways far more important than many Oklahomans realize, the… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma has a chance to improve protections for pregnant workers

By: DeVon Douglass
February 8, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
In 2005, Tashara Persky was working as the lead store clerk at an Oklahoma Dollar General Store. When she informed her supervisor that she was pregnant and that her doctor had told her not to lift more than 15 pounds,… Read more [More...]

Here are our top priorities for Oklahoma’s 2016 legislative session

By: David Blatt
February 4, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Over 1,700 bills and resolutions have been introduced for the 2016 legislative session, along with an equal number of measures from last session that remain alive and could still be considered this year. Despite the  plethora of legislation, there is… Read more [More...]

To improve Oklahoma’s health, we must reduce inequality (Guest Post: Candace Smith)

By: Guest
January 20, 2016 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Candace Smith is an OK Policy Research Fellow and a 4th year Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma’s (OU) Norman Campus. She is also a research assistant at the Oklahoma Department of Human Services’… Read more [More...]