The Okcitykid – A Peaceful Vet

TULSA ? Despite what he said in tonight’s debate, Jim Inhofe has spent 22 years in Washington gutting health care services for Oklahoma seniors and the state’s most vulnerable citizens while voting in favor of privatization schemes that let big insurance companies decide who will have health care.

In tonight’s debate, the only solution Jim Inhofe offered to bring down health care costs and cover the 45 million Americans who are uninsured was to reign in medical malpractice lawsuits.

Sen. Andrew Rice said in tonight’s debate that his proudest accomplishment in the legislature was State Senate passage of Steffanie’s Law.? Steffanie’s Law would require insurance companies to cover routine medical costs for patients enrolled in clinical trials.? The bill is named after Steffanie Collings, a young woman from Noble who lost her battle to brain cancer this March.? After Steffanie enrolled in a clinical trial ? which offered her only chance to survive ? her family accumulated $400,000 in debt when the Collings’ insurance company refused to continue covering basic medical care unrelated to the clinical trial.

Sen. Andrew Rice also successfully crafted legislation in Oklahoma to expand eligibility for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, allowing 38,000 more Oklahoma children to be covered, while Jim Inhofe was voting against federal funding for the children’s health insurance program (SCHIP) three times. [H.R. 976, 8/2/07 & 9/27/07]

Inhofe also voted three times in July to cut Medicare payments to doctors by 10 percent, which would have made it impossible for many doctors across Oklahoma to accept Medicare patients for lack of reimbursement.? And Inhofe voted to raise the Medicare eligibility age by two years, which would leave tens of thousands of Oklahoma seniors without the healthcare they depend on.? [H.R. 6331, 7/9/08 & 7/15/08]

Karina Henderson
Rice for US Senate
www.andrewforoklahoma.com