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The Weekly Wonk is a summary of Oklahoma Policy Institute’s events, publications, blog posts, and coverage. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know.
OK Policy Director David Blatt was busying making news this week, first with his Journal Record column which explained why lawmakers were creating a false choice over the continuation of Insure Oklahoma. David was also mentioned in a Tulsa World article discussing highlights of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation annual symposium. Lastly, David was ask to participate in the Oklahoma Economic Report’s Making the Grade, in which he gave the Oklahoma legislature a D- for the 2013 session. In other OK Policy news, a criminal justice policy consulting firm lauded OK Policy’s analysis of Oklahoma’s criminal justice reforms and policy analyst, Gene Perry was quoted in a Tulsa World article discussing Oklahoma’s continued high divorce rate.
The OK Policy Blog explained why Oklahoma’s criminal justice reform efforts have completely ignored the biggest reasons for our sky-high incarceration rate. We also featured guest posts from Colin D. Moore discussing how the Veterans Health Administration became a leader in American health care, delivering high-quality care at a reasonable cost and Cindy Cason who highlighted the Oklahoma Standard, an effort by Oklahomans to come together in crisis. Lastly, we released our annual Budget Highlights report, an informative and accessible ways to track Oklahoma’s public spending.
- 36 – The number of private business start-ups in Oklahoma since 1998 emerging from federally funded bioscience research at the University of Oklahoma.
- 40th – Oklahoma’s rank among the states for median speed of residential internet access, 2,941 kilobits per second.
- 1.5 million – Number of Oklahomans enrolled in a government-sponsored health plan, including Medicaid (children, seniors, people with disabilities & the very poor), Medicare (seniors), and Tricare (military service members).
- 10 – The number of people on death row in Oklahoma who have been exonerated and were ultimately released because of evidence of their innocence.
Policy Notes
- The Center for Economic and Policy Research showed how America is the only developed country that doesn’t guarantee paid vacation or holidays, and it’s mostly poorer workers who are denied vacations.
- Governing reported that more than a quarter-million veterans who lack health insurance will miss out on Medicaid coverage because they live in states that have declined to expand the program under the Affordable Care Act.
- Wonkblog shared the most embarrassing graph in the history of drug control policy.
- Paul Krugman explained why the war against food stamps being pushed by some politicians is ugly and destructive.
