EDITORIAL: Medicaid expansion talk in Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday regarding a proposed state question to expand Medicaid to a population in Oklahoma that currently doesn't qualify. Meantime, a new poll provides some interesting perspective about voters' views of the idea.

Under the Affordable Care Act, states may add able-bodied adults to Medicaid with the federal government covering 90 percent of the cost and states providing 10 percent. Supporters of expansion in Oklahoma want to see hundreds of millions of federal dollars returned to the state each year, saying it would improve individual health outcomes and help medical providers, especially rural hospitals.

The state question is being challenged by the conservative Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, which takes issue with some of the language in the ballot question and questions whether the state constitution would allow for a provision in which the federal government dictates state spending.

But the OCPA has been arguing against expanding Medicaid since long before the state question was proposed, noting that some of the proposed benefits -- better health outcomes, economic growth -- aren't a given, and that the state's cost could increase dramatically, as has happened elsewhere.

Louisiana is one state that has had problems. An audit released last year found thousands of ineligible Medicaid beneficiaries, including about 1,600 who earned more than $100,000 annually. The state recently purged about 30,000 ineligible recipients from its Medicaid rolls.

The conservative Pelican Institute for Public Policy also found another concern: Louisiana residents dropping their private insurance coverage to enroll in Medicaid. "The number of people covered by private health insurance declined by tens of thousands, even as Medicaid enrollment skyrocketed by more than 141,000," Chris Jacobs, a senior fellow with the institute, wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal.

The pros and cons will be bandied about in Oklahoma for months to come. A recent Sooner Survey, conducted by Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates, found that Oklahoma's proposed State Question 802 has 48 percent support among Oklahoma voters, with 33 percent opposed. Not surprisingly, Democrats strongly favor it, while Republicans oppose it (although not by as wide a margin as Democrats support it).

When they were given an "Oklahoma plan" for expansion, something Gov. Kevin Stitt has said he favors, 70 percent of those surveyed said they supported some type of Medicaid expansion. Pollster Pat McFerron found that including such things as a work requirement and having new participants make at least a nominal premium payment made an Oklahoma plan palatable even to a majority of those who originally opposed SQ 802.

Even if SQ 802 winds up on the ballot next year and is defeated, McFerron said, conservatives should note that this issue isn't going anywhere. "The opportunity is to take this issue off the table and put forth a plan with elements embraced by conservatives while making other desired changes to improve health care delivery in Oklahoma," he said.

Stitt and legislative leaders, take note.

___

(c)2019 The Oklahoman

Visit The Oklahoman at www.newsok.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.