Spiropoulos: Consider Reasoning Behind Insure OK’s Reprieve
Right Thinking: Consider reasoning behind reprieve
by Andrew C. Spiropoulos
A relieved Gov. Mary Fallin recently announced that the Obama administration has agreed to wait a year before euthanizing the Insure Oklahoma health insurance program. We are expected to be grateful that the administration is delaying its plan to withdraw support for the innovative, successful program that relies on a partnership between government and the private sector to provide coverage for the uninsured.
The administration believes Insure Oklahoma is no longer necessary. The administration thinks this because those participating in the program can, under the president’s health care plan and depending on their income level, either sign up for an expanded Medicaid program (or, put more bluntly, go on welfare) or use public subsidies to buy insurance on the new health care exchange. The feds don’t care if our plan has worked; they want to force everyone into theirs.
So why have the feds given us a reprieve? The administration perceives an opportunity to use our state’s leaders’ support of Insure Oklahoma as a wedge to break Oklahoma’s resistance to the expansion of Medicaid. The president never imagined that either the U.S. Supreme Court would rewrite his health care bill to empower states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion or so many states would refuse to participate in his scheme. He is desperate to find a way to convince states to take the offer he thought they couldn’t refuse.