Oklahoma’s healthcare rankings have been consistently poor while under decades of a Democratic majority in Oklahoma, but Governor Kevin Stitt was elected to bring a Turnaround to Oklahoma and that is what he is prepared to do.
Under Governor Stitt’s leadership, Oklahoma can find solutions that work. Below are actions Governor Stitt has taken over the past three years:
HEALTHCARE ACCOUNTABILITY
- Fighting for medical price transparency in Oklahoma, Governor Kevin Stitt signed into law the Health Care Prices Act requiring health care providers and facilities to make prices publicly available for various health services. (HB 1006)
- Introduced the State’s most transformational Medicaid reform plan in State history with the support of the Trump administration – SoonerCare 2.0. (source)
- With roughly 30% of Oklahoman on Medicaid, the most critical means to transform healthcare outcomes is by reforming the delivery of Medicaid.
- Currently, Oklahoma is one of the last states to deliver Medicaid with the 1965-version of a fee-for-service, government-controlled system.
- More than 40 other states have moved Medicaid to a public-private model that pays providers based on health outcomes. This has proven to help contain cost for taxpayers while giving Medicaid users more health plan choices, more access to care, and better outcomes.
- As Gov. Stitt says, “Medicaid should be a trampoline and not a hammock,” But we must fix the system so that it is advancing people towards those better outcomes.
- Established the first statewide Health Information Exchange (HIE) system, streamlining medical records and how hospitals interact with State on health data. It will also allow Oklahomans to have their health data under their own control, better protected and more portable. Oklahoma is one of the last states to build an HIE system and it will be in effect by 2023. (source, SB 574)
HEALTHCARE FUNDING
- Early in 2020, Stitt paid Oklahoma hospitals $40 million in Covid funds to build permanent, medical-grade infrastructure to increase capacity for treating individuals with Covid in 2020 when there was no vaccine or treatment options. (source, source)
- Increased provider rates for nursing homes, hospitals, and physicians by $105 million in 2019. (source)
- Increased the State’s investment in training physicians to serve in rural hospitals by $67 million in 2019. (source)
- Established a savings fund to protect Medicaid provider rates in hard times. (source)
- Provided a long-term funding solution for Medicaid provider rates by incrementally increasing the Supplemental Hospital Offset Payment Program, thereby protecting the taxpayer from future tax increases. (SB 1045)
GOVERNMENT REFORM
- In 2019, Stitt called for and reformed the State’s largest health-related agencies, making it more accountable to the voter as well as streamlining frontline programs to improve services for Oklahomans. This has resulted in the greatest level of coordination in recent history between OHCA, Health Department, and Department of Human Services. Prior they operated in silos, independent of the executive branch.