With a last-place health ranking and hospital reimbursement rates falling, hospital executives say Oklahoma is in a health care crisis.
State Rep. Glen Mulready said it’s going to be a tough year to make progress, though.
"Just because, I mean, we are — $1 billion. We're trying to find $1 billion to meet current budget needs, so the thought of doing aggressively more — it's just tough to fathom that we could do that," Mulready said.
The Oklahoma Hospital Association is calling on lawmakers to expand the premium assistance plan known as Insure Oklahoma to include more than 233,000 additional people. That would require accepting federal Medicaid funds the state has so far refused.
OHA estimates Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rate cuts will cost hospitals in the state $5 billion by 2023.
"And on top of that, you have care that's being rendered to the uninsured for which hospitals and other providers don't get any reimbursement," said OHA President Craig Jones. "That's in excess of $570 million a year in costs, and we can't sustain that."
Jones said the state’s economic realities have created a perfect storm.
"We're going to have to consider things that maybe politically and ideologically have been problematic for some of our legislative leaders," Jones said.
Jones said not accepting the expansion dollars leaves hundreds of thousands uninsured, threatening the health of the workforce and, in turn, affecting employers.
Insure Oklahoma is currently a premium assistance program that helps employers and certain individuals get affordable health care.
Jones and Mulready were among the participants at a regional heath care summit in Tulsa Tuesday. Health officials from Arkansas were on hand and talked about their state's health care expansion, known as the Arkansas private option.
