Topic: Health

The Governor’s Budget In-Depth: Budget cuts plus tax cuts don’t add up

By: David Blatt
February 5, 2014 // Updated: May 2, 2019
With state agencies and schools still struggling to climb out  of deep budget holes from the last recession, Governor Mary Fallin’s FY 2015 Executive Budget proposes even deeper cuts that could seriously harm our families and our economy. With initial… Read more [More...]

18 years uninsured, but no more

By: David Blatt
February 4, 2014 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Beth is a home renovator and woodworker who lives north of Edmond. For the last 18 years, she has operated her own small business. For 18 years, she also went without health insurance. This finally changed January 1st, when the… Read more [More...]

The Legislature returns to work today. Here’s what should be top on the agenda.

By: Gene Perry
February 3, 2014 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Political debates often divide us between Republicans and Democrats, between conservatives, progressives, and libertarians. Winner-take-all political campaigns tend to emphasize those divides. But when we envision what a good future looks like for our state, Oklahomans aren’t that far apart.… Read more [More...]

Avoiding devastating health care cuts will require hard choices

By: David Blatt
January 29, 2014 // Updated: May 2, 2019
A budget committee hearing last week laid out in stark terms what’s at stake in the coming legislative session and made clear that in preparing next year’s budget, bold measures will be needed to avoid potentially devastating cuts. On the… Read more [More...]

Tackling the diabetes epidemic in Oklahoma (Guest Post: Breanca Thomas)

By: David Blatt
January 24, 2014 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Breanca Thomas is a PhD student in Health Promotion Sciences in the College of Public Health at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and a 2013-14 OK Policy Research Fellow. She intends to pursue a research career focusing on… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma’s biggest drug problem isn’t what you think

By: Carly Putnam
January 23, 2014 // Updated: May 2, 2019
UPDATE: Download our fact sheet about prescription drug abuse in Oklahoma here. New National Vital Statistics data released early this month showed that the American life expectancy has reached a record high: a child born in 2009 has a life… Read more [More...]

Obamacare destroying jobs? Not so fast.

By: Carly Putnam
January 6, 2014 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Three years after it was signed into law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare) remains contentious. Critics have especially focused on a provision that requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to offer affordable health insurance… Read more [More...]

Oklahoma and Kentucky: A tale of two states

By: David Blatt
December 23, 2013 // Updated: May 2, 2019
When it comes to health challenges facing their populations, Oklahoma and Kentucky are two states with strong similarities. The latest state rankings from the United Health Foundation put Oklahoma 43rd and Kentucky 44th in overall health. Both states rank at… Read more [More...]

Rejecting federal health care dollars would mean huge tax transfer to Washington

By: David Blatt
December 18, 2013 // Updated: May 2, 2019
Oklahoma taxpayers will send $1.252 billion to Washington with nothing to show for it if we continue to refuse federal health care dollars. [More...]

Examining HIV/AIDS in Oklahoma

By: Carly Putnam
December 9, 2013 // Updated: May 2, 2019
In the 30 years since HIV/AIDS exploded into public consciousness in the 1980s, considerable progress has been made. Rates of infection and death related to HIV/AIDS have declined to well below peak levels—the number of new diagnoses each year are… Read more [More...]