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Sacred Secrets
Whatsoever things I see or hear concerning the life of men, in my attentance on the sick or even apart therefrom, which ought not be noised abroad, I will keep silence thereon, counting such things to be as sacred secrets. - Oath of Hippocrates, 4th Century, B.C.E.
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OHCA CEO Nico Gomez Comments On Leavitt Partners Report
First, I would to thank Leavitt Partners for their work. Their ability to turn around such an enormous undertaking in a short timeframe is a testament to their expertise.
Where do we go from here? Well, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority will be reviewing the SoonerCare evaluation piece to look for ways to improve our program. We will also be taking the full report to state leadership.
I believe it is important that we allow our state's leaders time to process all the information, analysis and recommendations that have been offered. SoonerCare and Insure Oklahoma are critically important to the health and economy of the state, and the significance of the decisions that will be made should be given their due diligence.
I, as well as the staff of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, look forward to working with state leadership in our effort to provide the citizens of Oklahoma access to quality, affordable health coverage.
To review the complete Leavitt report, please visit
www.okhca.org/Leavitt
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Statement:
The American public has been misled about what health care reform in the United States actually means and what it entails. Health care reform is not about healing sick people, nor is it about savings lives and saving dollars as we have been led to believe.
Health care reform is really about replacing our traditional medical system with a non-human technology-based universal health care system. It will replace real doctors with virtual doctors; globally share your most intimate information with people you don't know, severing the once-confidential relationship between patients and doctors. (Our sacred secrets.)
This reform didn't start with the election of the president in 2008. Health care reform began in the Clinton administration, continued through the Bush years, and culminated with the next president, who happens to be Obama, and is supported in this state by Governors Henry, Fallin, and the majority of the Oklahoma Legislature.
Federal Data Hub:
The word hub sounds less sinister than Total Information Awareness (TIA), or global surveillance, which is actually what the federal government is establishing. TIA allows for access to and use of information about anybody, at any time, for any reason or purpose the government deems necessary, including our medical records.
Those very same medical records that used to be held as private and inviolate are now accessible by the Department of Homeland Security.
Exposing Health Care Reform:
This website is dedicated to one subject exposing health care reform for what it is in Oklahoma. Our state is establishing this technology system by means of a public-beneficiary trust called the Oklahoma Health Information Exchange Trust (OHIET), operating with unbridled power and no oversight. Even if the Supreme Court overturns the individual mandate, the OHIET will have implemented Obama Care in our state, despite the wishes of the people.
Call to Action:
Let's prevent health care reform becoming America's Waterloo.
Contact the Oklahoma Legislators today and tell them you don't want any part of Obama Care and that you want them to TERMINATE the OHIET trust. Tell your health care provider that you don't want your medical records shared with anyone and put it in writing.
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Link to the 2011 Joint Legislative Committee on Federal Health Care Reform meetings information, including speakers' presentations
www.okhealthcare.info
Dates of meetings: 9/13/11, 10/5/11, 10/26/11*, 11/3/11 and 11/15/11.
Link to
video of four of the Joint Legislative Meetings posted on the Oklahoma Legislature House
Home Page. *Audio only
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SB1629 CLICK HERE FOR PDF
Oklahoma State Senators in Leadership along with Governor Fallin and the State Chamber of Commerce insist they are NOT setting up the Federal ObamaCare Health Care system, yet this is what SB1629 says:
SECTION 8. NEW LAW A new section of law not to be codified in the Oklahoma Statutes reads as follows:
The Oklahoma Health Care Authority is hereby directed to seek any and all Federal approval necessary to implement the provisions of this act.
Is that language consistant with fighting ObamaCare; as they insist they are doing?
March 2012 SB 1629 Marketplace/Exchange Bill ObamaCare Model
OK-SAFE, Inc. Things are getting curiouser and curiouser in the Oklahoma legislature. According to some Senate Republicans, if you're against ObamaCare you'd be for a bill implementing ObamaCare.
Alice in Wonderland pretty well sums up what it felt like when SB 1629 was being presented by Tulsa Senator Gary Stanislawski. (To read a great parable about the Senate's Health and Human Services committee meeting see the Oklahoma for Liberty site here .)
For the record, OK-SAFE opposes legislation that facilitates the implementation of ObamaCare health reform, and therefore opposes SB 1629, establishing a statebased exchange/marketplace.
The word marketplace is used to avoid using the notorious word exchange.
Senate Bill 1629 by ProTem Brian Bingman, which passed by a vote of 72 on Monday, would establish the very insurance exchange, or marketplace model called for in the PPACA , aka ObamaCare. Even though the Republican members of the Senate Health and Human Services committee said they oppose ObamaCare, not one of them voted against SB 1629, or even mentioned the actual content of the bill, which included the creation of yet another trust to oversee the exchange/marketplace.
The word marketplace is used to avoid using the notorious word exchange. Curiously, Sen. Tom Adelson has submitted an amendment to the bill, nullifying it if the Supreme Court shoots down PPACA, or if a new Congress does.
The Individual Mandate
Most of the questions in this committee were about the individual mandate (not included in the bill.) A fraction of the Affordable Care is about the individual mandate; most of the rest of the bill deals with items such as the exchanges and the reconfiguration of the insurance market.
The committee members either hadn't read the bill, or they were working from talking points or a summary; they did not discuss what the bill actually says.
SB 1629 Creates a Marketplace/Exchange and Another Trust The Middle Man Model
SB 1629 creates a public-beneficiary Health Insurance Private Marketplace Network Trust. [See diagram below]
This Marketplace Network Trust would (initially) do two things: 1) take over and administer the premium assistance program (Insure Oklahoma) from the OK Health Care Authority, and 2) develop and implement a marketplace assistance program to assist small businesses in the offering of employersponsored insurance purchased from the private market insurance carriers. (In other words, an insurance exchange.)
This new trust has a twin called the Oklahoma Health Information Exchange Trust, or OHIET. Created by stealth in the last week of session in 2010, the OHIET is busy establishing the network of networks that facilitate the transfer of electronic health records everywhere.
Why would insurers be advocates for an exchange? Insurance companies are urging state officials to set up exchanges because they generally prefer state regulation. In addition, they stand to gain because the United States Treasury will send subsidy payments directly to insurers on behalf of low and moderateincome people who enroll in health plans offered through an exchange.(National Center for Policy Analysis article here.)
Kinda explains SB 1629 doesn't it?
The Model as Devised by SB 1629 This diagram depicts the middleman model. (For a great explanation of the notfreemarket model, see the Vicky Davis article entitled The Model IS the Message.)
Click on diagram to see fullsized printable PDF available on the Exposing Health Care Reform website.
OKSAFE Summary of the Bill:
- Section 1 of the bill describes the legislative intent: to expand the mission of Insure Oklahoma by moving the administration of the Insure Oklahoma program from the purview of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority to a state public trust established in this act.
Translation: they're moving management of governmentsponsored insurance from one state bureaucracy to a newly created one.
- Section 2 establishes the new trust B. The Health Insurance Private Marketplace Network Trust shall be established as a statebeneficiary public trust.
Translation: Oklahoma (government) is the beneficiary of the trust.
Section 2 defines the trust governance: C. The Health Insurance Private Marketplace Network Trust shall be governed by a Health Insurance Private Marketplace Network Board.
Translation: This section increases the power of the Executive branch due to powers of appointment; Fallin would get to appoint most of the Board members. Board members are unelected and not accountable to the public.
Of the 7member board Governor Fallin would appoint three members, the ProTem and the Speaker each appoint one; the other two are Insurance Commissioner John Doak and Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Terry Cline (also appointed by Fallin.)
C.
The board of trustees shall consist of seven (7) members as follows:
1. One member appointed by the Governor representing health insurance carriers granted a certificate of authority by the Oklahoma Department of Insurance;
2. One member appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives representing consumers and who has purchased policies through the Trust or is reasonably expected to purchase policies through the Trust;
3. One member appointed by the Governor who shall be a health care provider;
4. One member appointed by the Governor who shall be a representative of employer groups;
5. One member appointed by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate who shall be an insurance agent or broker;
6. The Insurance Commissioner - (John Doak)
7. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Terry Cline).
F. The board of trustees shall promulgate rules as necessary to implement the provisions of the act.
Translation: The appointed board will be insiders, and they can make the rules for the trust, not the legislature. Also the board members elect the Executive Director, who will likely be Dr. Cline just as was proposed in HB 2130 the HUB bill.
- Section 4 is New Law authorizing trust to administer a premium assistance program for lowincome individuals, and to assist small businesses (up to 250 employees for a for profit; up to 500 employees for a not-forprofit). This was the Insure Oklahoma section, being defined for the trust.
- Section 5 reads in part:
A. The Health Insurance Private Marketplace Network Trust is authorized to develop and implement a marketplace assistance program to assist small businesses in the offering of employer-sponsored insurance purchased from private market insurance carriers which shall go into effect January 1, 2014.
And
E. The board of trustees shall, by rule, determine the funding mechanism for the marketplace assistance program authorized in subsection A of this section
Translation: The new trust is given full authority to develop and implement the exchange (oops, marketplace) in any manner they see fit. The board of trustees can make any rules they'd like to govern the funding mechanism. Nothing in this section prohibits the trust from seeking federal funding, including federal grants that are available for states to develop an exchange one was called the Early Innovator Grant, remember?
- Section 6 severs Insure Oklahoma from the OHCA, and gives it to the trust. Section 7 deals with waivers.
- And finally, Section 8 of the bill reads: NEW LAW A new section of law not to be codified in the Oklahoma Statutes reads as follows:
The Oklahoma Health Care Authority is hereby directed to seek any and all Federal approval necessary to implement the provisions of this act.
This really shows the legislative intent. Federal approval. And Stanislawski said it would not be ObamaCare compliant? Want to bet?
[Aside: One wonders how and where that 40% excise tax will fit in once that becomes effective by 2018?]
Call Your Senator and Say NO to ObamaCare SB 1629
OK Senate Switch board: 18008656490, or 14055240126
Republican Senators who voted Yes in Committee for SB 1629 on 2/27/12:
Senator Brian Bingman: 14055215528 Email: bingman@oksenate.gov
Senator Gary Stanislawski: 14055215624 Email: Stanislawski@oksenate.gov
Senator Rick Brinkley: 14055215602 Email:Brinkley@oksenate.gov
Senator Brian Crain: 14055215620 Email: crain@oksenate.gov
Senator Rob Johnson: 14055215592 Email: johnsonr@oksenate.gov
Senator Dan Newberry: 14055215600 Email: newberry@oksenate.gov
Senator Steve Russell: 14055215618 Email: Russell@oksenate.gov
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