Medicaid expansion bill advances

Feb. 18--A bill that would use federal funds through Medicaid expansion to increase Oklahoma's private-insurance subsidy program for low income residents was passed by a Senate committee on Monday.

"This bill will expand Insure Oklahoma to the population Medicaid expansion would have covered," said Sen. Greg McCortney, the author of Senate bill 605. "Instead of having the (state) Health Care Authority become a huge health care provider, what we are proposing to do is purchase health insurance plans for these people through private insurers."

McCortney, R-Ada, said the plan would access nearly $1.2 billion from the federal government, with Oklahoma paying around $141 million.

While most states have accepted Medicaid expansion, Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma have consistently opposed the program, which was part of former President Barack Obama's signature health care reform act.

But as Oklahoma continues to have some of the nation's highest uninsured rates and rural hospitals struggle to remain open, there appears to be a willingness among more state lawmakers to consider expansion.

"The details really aren't there yet," Carly Putnam, a health care policy analyst at the Oklahoma Policy Institute, said about the bill.

"But it's a good conversation to have."

Putnam said the bill is similar to Medicaid expansion programs in Arkansas and Indiana, taking advantage of federal flexibility to impose work requirements and utilize private insurers.

SB 605 would require a waiver from the federal government.

"We have an administration in Washington D.C. that has indicated they are willing to sign off on something like this," McCortney said.

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