Health Reform Measure Advances In Oklahoma Senate

“I understand why health insurance companies do not want the state’s elected legislature acting on behalf of our constituents when we believe ordinary Oklahomans are being treated unfairly by the insurance bureaucracy. I just fundamentally disagree with them.”—State Sen. Andrew Rice

A health care reform bill championed by state Sen. Andrew Rice (D-Oklahoma City) has passed a Senate committee.

“Steffanie’s Law,” named after Steffanie Collings, an 18-year-old Noble woman who is battling a brain tumor, would require health insurance companies pick up routine medical costs associated with clinical trials. The Collings family, according to media reports, has accrued more than $400,000 in medical bills because their unnamed insurance provider refuses to pay for routine treatment costs as part of a clinical trial.

Rice, who serves on the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee that passed the bill on a 5-2 vote, recently said, “My bill would not force insurance companies to pay for the clinical trials, which they regard as experimental treatments. We just want them to continue paying for the routine medical care they were insuring before these patients followed their doctor’s recommendations into clinical trials.”

The full Senate will now vote on the bill.

“I understand why health insurance companies do not want the state’s elected legislature acting on behalf of our constituents when we believe ordinary Oklahomans are being treated unfairly by the insurance bureaucracy,” Rice said. “I just fundamentally disagree with them.”

The bill is important because it represents a serious local attempt to reform one aspect of the broken health care system in this country. In some respects, it is the result of the same frustration people might feel about the illegal immigration issue. The broken health care system and the broken illegal immigration system are the products of a “politics as usual” mentality and pro-corporation ideology, which has dominated state and national government in recent years.

Nearly 47 million people are without health insurance in this country. Those with health insurance now face staggering co-payments for routine tests and care. Insurance rates continue to climb. Insurance companies are routinely indifferent to people’s suffering. The vast majority of Americans are one illness away from financial ruin.

Now is the time to reform this country’s health care system. Both Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have made health care reform an important part of their candidacies.

Rice, who is running for the U.S. Senate this year against Jim Inhofe, has also championed a health insurance program for Oklahoma veterans, and he is opposed to a recently passed House bill that would actually make it harder to create coverage mandates for insurance companies. The idea that these mandates would result in higher insurance costs is “bogus,” Rice said.

State Sen. Jay Gumm (D- Durant) has also proposed health care reform legislation. Under “Nick’s Law,” health insurance policies in Oklahoma would have to cover costs associated with autism.