Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Oklahoma newspapers:
The Norman Transcript. Oct. 14, 2018.
- Voting is when speech turns to action
It’s easy to complain about what’s going on in our country and our state. But it takes effort to do something about it.
Millennials have a negative reputation for talking a big game but not backing it up with effort. And while that negative connotation is both inaccurate and cyclical, there is one negative stereotype that millennials should be concerned with shaking: they don’t vote, at least not nearly as much as their parents and grandparents.
According to the Pew Research Center, baby boomers reached their peak voting population in 2004 and in 2016, they still made up the largest percentage of the electorate: 48 million voters. In the 2016 presidential election, roughly 70 percent of eligible Baby Boomers voted, compared to only 50 percent of eligible Millennials.
Eligible Millennials and Generation X voters now outnumber older generations - the Silent Generation, Greatest Generation and boomers - but Millennials have been slower to ramp up voter participation than earlier generations. That could change this year, or at least move in a better direction. And that’s something everyone should be rooting for, because our form of government only operates effectively when its leaders are selected by an informed and engaged electorate.
In Oklahoma, the Nov. 6 elections seem to have a lot of energy around them for midterms. That’s certainly due, in part, to what’s happening at the federal level. But state issues and the high number of contested state offices have been driving Oklahomans to register to vote in droves: more than 75,000 Oklahomans registered to vote through the first nine months of the year, and that number will be much larger after Friday’s deadline.
If Oklahomans learned anything from the teacher walkout, it’s that statewide change is possible, even if it takes tremendous effort (and a lot of new legislators). The lineup of leaders we’ll select on November will have a profound impact on the future of our state. It’s vitally important those decisions are informed decisions.
Now that you’ve registered to vote, make sure you get out and vote. The future of our state and our country depends on it.
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Tulsa World. Oct. 15, 2018.
- Congress needs to catch up with the rest of the nation on medical marijuana
Once again, Oklahoma’s move toward medical marijuana is running into complications because of outdated federal policy.
In the eyes of the feds, the medical marijuana your grandmother might seek to deal with the side effects of her chemotherapy is a Schedule I drug. That puts it in the same category as LSD and heroin.
The medical marijuana dispensaries the state is preparing to license could be raided by the DEA at any point. If Oklahoma bankers handle their accounts, they could end up at odds with their federal banking overseers as surely as if they were working with the profits of Mexican drug cartels.
That essentially turns marijuana dispensaries into cash-only businesses, which creates some ridiculous, but entirely plausible, scenarios. For example, the state requires dispensaries to pay their state sales taxes by the 20th of every month, and the only place to pay it is at the Oklahoma Tax Commission office at the state Capitol complex. The tax commission doesn’t have the resources to handle lines of people carrying wads of cash, but that’s the way things are headed.
That may be fixable, but not without some strange business practices for the state and the dispensaries. The right way to do business is to allow the dispensaries to act like any other business in the state and open a checking account.
Thirty states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana. In Oklahoma, the supposedly reddest state in the nation, the medical marijuana proposal passed with 57 percent of the vote. The people of the United States have made a decision, and it’s time for their federal government to live with it.
Congress needs to reform laws and rules to allow for modest medical marijuana commerce and turn the nation’s banking regulators to far more dangerous, pernicious forces within the economy.
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The Oklahoman. Oct. 16, 2018.
- Kentucky stats undermine Medicaid narrative
Advocates of Medicaid expansion argue, correctly, that it can drive down the uninsured rate. Whether a lower uninsured rate translates into better health outcomes is less certain, as a comparison of Oklahoma and Kentucky demonstrates.
Oklahoma and Kentucky are demographically and culturally similar and often compared. Officials in Kentucky expanded Medicaid to include many able-bodied adults, as allowed under the Affordable Care Act. Oklahoma officials did not. Since then, Kentucky’s uninsured rate has fallen to 5.38 percent, which is eighth-best nationally. In contrast, Oklahoma ranks 49th with 14.16 percent of residents uninsured.
The question isn’t whether Medicaid expansion lowers the uninsured rate, but whether Medicaid coverage improves health access and outcomes. Each year the United Health Foundation issues a health ranking of the 50 states. In 2017, the most recent year available, it ranked Oklahoma 43rd in the nation. Kentucky ranked 42nd.
The foundation found Kentucky continues to have a high prevalence of smoking, a high cancer death rate, and a high preventable hospitalization rate. In the past three years, the report found diabetes increased 24 percent in Kentucky, and in the past 10 years drug deaths increased 85 percent.
Of 33 core measures reviewed, the foundation gave Kentucky negative marks in 22.
Since 1990, the highest ranking Kentucky has received in the foundation report is 39th in 2008, which was before Medicaid expansion, and the lowest was 47th in 2014, after Medicaid expansion.
The foundation’s Oklahoma findings ding the state for a high cardiovascular death rate, high infant mortality rate and declining immunization rate among children. Since 1990, Oklahoma’s worst ranking was 49th in both 2007 and 2009 with modest improvement recorded since then.
In both states, poor health rankings appear tied to personal behaviors as much as or more than insurance coverage. People who smoke, don’t exercise and have poor nutritional habits are going to have more health problems regardless of insurance status.
It’s been argued Medicaid expansion benefits hospitals’ financial stability, particularly in rural areas. Some research has shown Medicaid-expansion states have experienced a slower rate of hospital closures than non-expansion states. But it’s notable that earlier this year when Becker’s Hospital CFO Report compiled a list of the seven states with the most rural hospital closures, Kentucky was among them. Since 2010, four rural hospitals have closed in Kentucky. And, according to recent news reports, another hospital could soon be added to that list: 462-bed Jewish Hospital in Louisville, which primarily serves the poor and elderly.
While federal funds cover most costs of Medicaid expansion, the state must still provide matching funds. In August, The Associated Press reported Kentucky’s Medicaid program faced a nearly $300 million state shortfall. Keep in mind, Kentucky is among the states hit by teacher strikes this year. More money for Medicaid constrains spending elsewhere, including schools.
Supporters of Medicaid expansion imply lower rates of uninsured citizens will translate into across-the-board health improvement among citizens. The fact that Kentucky continues to rank alongside Oklahoma suggests otherwise.
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