OKLAHOMA CITY – A joint legislative working group, meeting for the fourth time this summer, spent last Wednesday trying to determine which Oklahomans, exactly, were covered by Medicaid and what the cost of providing Medicaid coverage for more residents would be.
OKLAHOMA CITY – A joint legislative working group, meeting for the fourth time this summer, spent last Wednesday trying to determine which Oklahomans, exactly, were covered by Medicaid and what the cost of providing Medicaid coverage for more residents would be.
The meeting comes as state lawmakers wrestle with the idea of expanding Medicaid in the Sooner State.
Wednesday, Carter Kimble, Deputy Secretary of Health for Gov. Kevin Stitt, outlined who is covered by health care in Oklahoma. Kimble said 684,100 Oklahomans were covered by Medicaid, while 560,700 were covered by Medicare.
Federal poverty guidelines – used as a qualifier for Medicaid coverage – set a $25,750 income level for a family of four at the 100% poverty level.
Company health care plans, he said, provide health insurance to 1,723,800 Oklahomans with 223,100 receiving insurance from non-group plans – with more than half of those enrolled in a plan through the Federal Health Insurance marketplace – and 80,100 getting their health coverage from other public insurance plans, such as the military or veterans affairs.
Almost 532,000 Oklahomans are uninsured, he said.
That figure for the uninsured, he said, includes tribal members who receive coverage only through the federal Indian Health Service.
“The reason that it (IHS coverage) isn’t counted as insurance is that it’s really not insurance,” Kimble said. “It is free clinics. The premise of insurance doesn’t exist in that IHS structure.”
State Representative Marcus McEntire, co-chair of the working group, said increasing Oklahoma’s access to care was one of the drivers of the state’s low health care ranking. “I think that’s something that we have to look at,” he said. “I think it’s something that the governor will be looking at.”
McEntire, a Republican from Duncan, said the effort between the legislature and governor’s office was beginning to move toward some type of legislation. Earlier this summer Republican lawmakers said they wanted to develop some type of plan before supporters of an initiative petition that expands Medicaid got the measure on the fall 2020 ballot.
“It’s sobering and pretty overwhelming,” he said. “We all live in our own little bubbles and we don’t think about the health care of the state and when you start seeing all these statistics, it paints a pretty bleak future for Oklahoma if we don’t change some things in regard to our health care policy and culture.”
Clay Farris, a representative of the Mostly Medicaid company, said about 80% of the United States use the Medicaid managed care system to deliver their program.
He said that the system offers budget stability, transfers the risk to the private sector, improves the continuity of care and provides better opportunities for governance.
Documents provided by Farris showed that the federal government spent a total of $7.2 trillion on Medicaid from 1966 to 2014.
For the period from 2014 through 2022, Farris said, the government is expected to spend $5.5 trillion, alone, about two-thirds of what it spent over the past three decades.
That spending, he said, crowds out all other priorities including, K-12 and higher education, transportation and corrections.
Lawmakers will continue their study of the health care system next week.