EDITORIAL: Take another look at Medicaid

June 10--Oklahoma's population is just under 4 million, estimated at 3.9 million in 2017. Close to 800,000 are enrolled every month in SoonerCare, 65 percent of those are children. In Payne County, 11,590 people were enrolled in SoonerCare, so about 15 percent of the county's population. SoonerCare is Oklahoma's Medicaid, funded by both the state and federal government.

The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, but the Medicaid expansion to states that went with it was rejected by Gov. Mary Fallin in 2012. By 2016, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, 20 million people previously uninsured gained health insurance. In 2017, the new administration in the White House sought unsuccessfully to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

We're still in a kind of holding pattern, but Oklahoma more so than many other states. Oklahoma still has the option of taking the expansion, which would apply to more than 100,000 Oklahomans. It's gaining more attention because Virginia just accepted expansion a few days ago.

The problems that arise, are ones that we are very familiar with as a state. Many view this as an entitlement for people who some think should be paying their own way -- a low-rent socialism.

One issue is if funds targeted for expansion are unable to cover those already enrolled that desperately need it should budget problems arise. We want to trust legislators not to cut programs for the neediest Oklahomans, but we've had trust issues recently. Oklahoma should take money if it's on the table, but we desperately need to study the pros and cons.

An expansion of Medicaid in Oklahoma would not be universal healthcare. It wouldn't even be close. But, it we're worrying about able-bodied people who won't take insurance because they believe that can't afford it, and would only have it through SoonerCare, perhaps we need to look at the even deeper and more complicated issue of increasing wages or the thresholds for employers to provide it.

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