Sen. Deevers introduces 6 bills to 'Make Oklahoma Healthy Again'

Deevers Introduces the Six-Bill Make Oklahoma Healthy Again Agenda

OKLAHOMA CITY — Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, announced on Thursday the filing of six bills to Make Oklahoma Healthy Again. In tandem with the MAHA agenda of President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Deevers introduced SB943, SB702, SB771, SB801, SB941, and SJR8.

“The MAHA agenda is one of the most positive developments in American politics and has a clear mandate from the voters,” Deevers said. “These bills aim to improve the health of Oklahomans by increasing quality, transparency, accountability, decentralization, and freedom in health and medical care.”

OCPA column: Medicaid won't reduce inflated hospital bills

Medicaid won’t reduce inflated hospital bills

By Jonathan Small

Most of us have heard of someone who received a wildly implausible bill from a hospital. Among the examples compiled by the website, thehealthy.com, were hospitals that charged $15 per Tylenol tablet, $8 for a “mucus recovery system” (better known as a box of tissues), $53 per non-sterile pair of gloves, $10 for the little plastic cup that holds a patient’s pills, and $23 per alcohol swab.

The retail cost of a Tylenol tablet runs less than 30 cents, meaning the $15 price is a markup of more than 5000 percent. If hospitals are overcharging that much on small items, one wonders how much the markup is on the big-ticket items.

Those prices are the result of a medical system with no price transparency and, therefore, little direct competition. And the lack of transparency leads to “surprise” medical bills that people struggle to pay, and then to lawsuits.

Oklahoma Watch recently reported that Oklahoma hospitals have filed at least 22,250 lawsuits against former patients over unpaid medical bills since 2016.

How did some hospital officials’ respond to that report? Just expand Medicaid.

But experts familiar with the lawsuit issue note that many people being sued are already insured, including some on Medicaid. This problem isn’t caused by lack of coverage; it’s caused by a lack of transparency. Even for routine procedures, it is extremely difficult to get an up-front estimate, and hidden costs are the norm.

However, where price transparency exists at places like the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, it demonstrates conclusively that many other hospitals are dramatically overcharging patients. Comparisons have shown the Surgery Center’s prices are often one-sixth to one-eighth the amount charged elsewhere.

So why is it that the facilities charging the far-higher prices are the ones claiming to be on the verge of insolvency, and not the Surgery Center? One answer is that many of the figures touted by supposedly “broke” hospitals are as bogus as a $15 aspirin pill. Martin Makary, a professor of surgery with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, recently noted that one hospital was caught charging $70,000 for a hip replacement when the commercial reference-based price was $29,000 and the Medicare-allowable amount was $20,000. That means that hospital could claim to have provided $30,000 in “uncompensated” care if it collected “just” $40,000 on a hip replacement, even though that price may represent $10,000 to $20,000 in pure profit.

Expanding Medicaid won’t suddenly cause hospitals to stop inflating bills. In fact, knowing that taxpayers are on the hook may encourage some providers to further boost their charges, and patients will continue to be sued.

If policymakers are serious about reducing health costs and protecting consumers, they need to focus on increasing up-front price transparency and competition in medicine, not expanding government welfare.

Jonathan Small serves as president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.

"Abortion, Yes — Other Choices? Forget It."

Deroy Murdock

Abortion, Yes — Other Choices? Forget It.

Almost unanimously, Washington Democrats call themselves "pro-choice." "I support a woman's right to choose!" they thunder. "Choice," of course, means abortion, and that is where the Democrats' passion for choice starts and stops.

Elsewhere, Democrats sabotage a woman's right to choose. Instead, they demand to make that choice for her, as they do for men. I support a woman's right to choose whether or not to use a traditional Thomas Alva Edison incandescent bulb. Democrats disagree.

The House of Representatives voted July 12 on a measure to repeal federal regulations that effectively criminalize sales of Edison's bulb. According to Freedom Action's Myron Ebell, violators face a federal penalty of $200 per offending bulb sold.

Among 239 Republicans, 228 (or 95 percent) voted to liberate women (and men) so that they could choose among inexpensive incandescents, pricier LEDs, compact fluorescents (tainted with toxic mercury), and even candles. (Five thinking Democrats supported the GOP majority.)

Candles average 15,260 home fires and 166 attendant fatalities annually, the National Fire Protection Association reports. Yet candles remain legal.

Among 192 Democrats, 183 voted to deny a woman this choice, echoing President Barack Obama's veto threat. (Ten statist Republicans concurred.) Fully 95 percent of Democrats defended a 2007 law (signed by socialist Trojan Horse George W. Bush) that is steering Americans, like cattle, toward alternative bulbs.

"These standards are not taking choices away," Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently told journalists. The polite word for Chu's statement is "Orwellian." The precise word is "lie."

This law deliberately raises the bar higher than Edison's bulb can leap. Regulations that wittingly exceed a product's defining features prohibit the product itself. Why should Washington take away donuts, for instance, when it could criminalize fried-dough pastries that encircle holes?

I support a woman's right to choose whether or not to use Avastin. Obama's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee disagrees. On June 30, ODAC rescinded its approval of this treatment for late-stage breast cancer. ODAC decided that Avastin's side effects were not worth its five-month average life extension, even though it lengthens the lives of "super-responders" by upwards of two to three years.

Perhaps ODAC forgot that a key side effect of metastatic breast cancer is death — as 40,000 women discover annually. But that hardly matters to the pharmacrats who snatched this choice from some 17,500 American women on Avastin. Ironically, those Obama administration members likely support a woman's right to control her body — but only regarding abortion.

I support a woman's right to choose whether or not to buy health insurance under Obamacare. Congressional Democrats disagree. They voted in near lockstep last year to compel women (and men) to participate in Obamacare. Without exception, Republicans opposed Obamacare and its individual mandate.

I support a woman's right to choose to send her child to an alternative school that accepts educational vouchers. Unfortunately, Washington Democrats disagree. A federal initiative gave roughly 3,000 students vouchers worth up to $7,500 to escape Washington's calamitous government schools. Despite promising results, teachers unions detested this program.

So, after Obama took charge, congressional Democrats swiftly killed it. Never mind the choices of the poor, mainly black mothers whose kids these vouchers benefited. Fortunately, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, successfully re-authorized these vouchers within last April's bipartisan budget agreement.

I support a woman's right to choose Internet gambling as a pastime. Unfortunately, Obama's Justice Department disagrees. On April 15, it hijacked the domain names of Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, three foreign-based poker websites.

Justice eventually let Poker Stars and Full Tilt serve foreign gamblers, provided that they discriminate against Americans. Thankfully, Antigua-based Absolute Poker is fighting Justice's authoritarianism before the World Trade Organization.

If a woman chooses to kill the young American in her womb, nearly every Democrat in Washington, D.C. will fight for her like Army Rangers on Normandy Beach. But if a woman desires almost any other choice, Democrats impersonate the Great Wall of China.

Deroy Murdock is a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. Email him at deroy.Murdock@gmail.com.

Lawmakers Vote to Ban Creation of Embryos for Experiments

Lawmakers Vote to Ban Creation of Embryos for Experiments

OKLAHOMA CITY (February 22, 2011) – Legislation that would make it illegal to create human embryos for experiments was approved by a House committee today.

"This legislation simply makes it illegal to create unborn children with the intent of killing them for research purposes," said state Rep. George Faught, R-Muskogee. "Oklahomans do not support treating unborn babies as ‘spare parts.’"

House Bill 1442, by Faught, creates the "Destructive Human Embryo Research Act." The proposed law would make it illegal to "intentionally or knowingly conduct destructive research on a human embryo" or to "buy, sell, receive, or otherwise transfer a human embryo with the knowledge that such embryo shall be subjected to destructive research."

Violations would result in misdemeanor charges.

The legislation states that the destruction of human embryos to obtain embryonic stem cells "raises grave moral, ethical, scientific, and medical issues that must be addressed," and that the moral justification for medical or scientific research "cannot be based upon the dehumanizing and utilitarian premise that the end justifies any means."

In spite of millions spent, Faught noted that embryonic stem cell research has not produced a single treatment and typically generates cancer tumors, not cures.

In fact, Dr. Kevin Donovan, director of the Oklahoma Bioethics Center at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in Tulsa, told the Tulsa World (April 24, 2009 edition) that "embryonic stem cell research so far and in the future is a dead end. There are no foreseeable cures in the next decade for certain."

In addition, embryonic stem cell research also has a supply problem.

A report by the RAND Corporation found that only 2.8 percent of so-called "leftover" embryos at fertility clinics have been specifically designated for research while 88.2 percent continue to be held for family planning. (link)

The RAND report also found that 11,000 embryos would generate just 275 new embryonic stem cell lines.

Locally, KOTV in Tulsa reported in 2009 that the Integris Fertility Clinic in Oklahoma City had 230 sets of embryos stored for later use, 20 sets for embryo adoption, and just two sets designated for research. The clinic indicated that each "set" can contain anywhere from two to 11 embryos each.

"It is clear that the only viable way to conduct embryonic stem cell research is to create thousands of new embryos specifically to harvest them for stem cells," Faught said. "Even if there were no moral problems, there simply are not enough ‘discard’ embryos at fertility clinics."

Faught said he does support adult stem cell research, which is already helping patients overcome more than 70 diseases and disorders and does not require embryo destruction.

"Why should we condone the killing of thousands or millions of unborn children when there are far better alternatives, and at a time when advances in adult stem cell research are allowing ‘reprogramming’ of cells to duplicate embryonic cells?" Faught said. "Oklahoma can be pro-life, pro-research and pro-cure without endorsing embryo destruction."

He noted Oklahoma has already dedicated millions to adult stem cell research. In 2009, the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust committed $500,000 for a year-long planning phase for adult stem cell research funding, followed by $1 million per year funding for the following five-year implementation phase, for a total of $5.5 million.

House Bill 1442 passed the House Public Health Committee today. It now proceeds to the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

NOTE: For accompanying video, go to this link.