Republicans offer positive solutions

By Sen. V. Glenn Coffee | Phillips Murrah P.C. | The Oklahoman

[ FEBRUARY 24, 2010 - OKLAHOMA CITY, OK ] - My colleague, Sen. Tom Adelson, recently criticized Senate Republicans in a Senate committee meeting, and in the pages of this newspaper, for not supporting Obamacare and for not providing our own proposals to reform health care. The fact is that our constituents across Oklahoma and the nation, Republicans and Democrats alike, are very concerned about Obamacare and the effect its mandates would have on health care delivery and its potentially disastrous effect on federal and state budget deficits.

The proposals offered by Republican senators were good-faith efforts to send a clear and unambiguous message to Washington that a vast majority of Oklahomans, and indeed most Americans, disagree with the policies being promoted by this administration, and the expense they will impose upon individuals and governments.

Indeed these concerns are bipartisan. Oklahomans from all walks of life have filled op-ed pages with their concerns. Office holders and candidates from both parties have chided the D.C. approach.

Late last year, House Speaker Chris Benge and I wrote a letter to U.S. Rep. Tom Cole outlining our concerns with the health care bill. The unfunded mandates the bill would impose on our state would send our fiscal structure to ruins. The mandates within the bill would push more low-income individuals to Medicaid rolls, with no financial help from the federal government. In short, the bill would blow a gaping hole in our already-depleted state budget.

States across our nation are lining up in opposition to this behemoth coming out of Washington. Earlier this month, the Democrat-controlled state senate in Virginia passed a bill that would block the implementation of the individual mandate of Obamacare.

In fact, Republicans at the federal and state levels have presented many positive solutions to fix the problems that exist concerning access, and the cost of our current health care system, including:

› Reduce the growing burden of government health care mandates, which place additional costs on the system;

› Reduce reliance on third-party payers so patients are directly aware of the cost of their health care;

› Encourage competition and entrepreneurship among health care providers;

› Expand the use of health care savings accounts and give those who use them equal tax benefits;

› Provide for the right to transfer an individual’s current policy when he or she changes or loses a job;

› Provide for stronger lawsuit reform, which will dramatically reduce the cost of defensive medicine to insurance policy holders;

› Encourage drug companies to expand the programs that reduce the cost of prescriptions to low-income Oklahomans;

› Allow health insurance companies freer access to do business in all of the states to increase competition and choice for Oklahomans.

These are but a few of the positive solutions Republicans have presented to help solve the health care cost crisis. We still welcome hearing Sen. Adelson’s proposals rather than his continued criticism. We ask that he remember that in the final analysis, we are all in this together.

Coffee, R-Oklahoma City, is president pro tem of the state Senate.