What SB13 Actually Does - Part 3

What SB 13 Actually Does

(a continuance from  Part 1)

   An analysis of SB 13 shows the following repealers that strike down existing state law. When reading the bill at this link, any text that is underlined is new additions to the existing statures and any that has a line through it is language that is being removed. Sometimes a simple repealer is listed saying that Section X is being removed.

Here are the major repealers of SB 13:

Section 9: Repeals laws which restrict those allowed to perform abortions to physicians. This part of SB 13 allows anyone to perform an abortion, licensed doctor or not.

Section 12: Repeals Conscience clauses. As written, would force Christian hospitals to allow their employees or prospective employees (including doctors and nurses) to practice abortion even in cases where the mother's life is not at imminent risk.

Section 16: Repeals ban on partial birth abortion (21 OS 684)

Also repeals Oklahoma's original laws against abortion from 1910, which bans abortion except to save the life of the mother (21 OS 714, and 862), and Oklahoma's 1961 update ban on abortion except to save the life of the mother (21 OS 861).

Section 17:

• Repeals 63 OS 1-729a, legislative findings regarding administering RU-486 (the abortion pill)
• Repeals 63 OS 1-731, which among other things prevents abortions after the first trimester.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-731.2, which prohibits sex-selection abortions.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-732, which prohibits abortion on a viable unborn child.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-734, which requires an abortionist to take reasonable efforts to save the life of an unborn child still alive when exiting the mother's body.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-735, which prohibits the sale or experimentation on an unborn child. Thus, SB 13 legalizes the sale of baby body parts.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-736 a 1978 law which prohibits hospitals which perform abortions from advertising as "counseling" pregnant women.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-737, 1 1978 law which restricts abortions to being performed only at hospitals meeting Health Dept standards.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-737.4- 1-737.6, which require signage in an abortion clinic notifying patients that they cannot be forced to have an abortion.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-738i-738p, the Statistical Reporting of Abortion Act.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-738.1A-738.3a, and 738.5, which require informed consent before an abortion.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-738.3d-3e, which require an ultrasound before abortion
• Repeals 63 OS 1-738.6-738.17, the Unborn Child Pain Awareness/Prevention Act
• Repeals 63 OS 1-740 and 63 OS 1-740.1-740.6, Parental Notification requirements.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-740.11-740.12, a program to fund alternatives to abortion
• Repeals 63 OS 1-741 conscience clause. Thus, SB 13 forces Christian hospitals and doctors to perform abortions, to avoid discrimination lawsuits.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-741.3, which prevents insurance companies from covering elective abortion. Thus, SB 13 compels Oklahomans to subsidize abortion through your health insurance premiums and tax dollars.
• Repeals 63 OS 1-741.12, which prevents wrongful life/wrongful birth lawsuits. Thus, SB 13 coerces Christian doctors into performing abortions to avoid malpractice lawsuits.
• Repeals 63 OS -1745.1-745.11, Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

Section 18: Repeals 63 OS 1-729.1-729.7, requirement that physician be present when RU-486 is administered.

Section 19: Repeals 63 OS 1-745.12-745.19, Heartbeat Informed Consent Act.

Section 20: Repeals 63 OS 1-738q, Saving Clause on Statistical Reporting of Abortion Act.

Section 21: Repeals 63 OS 1-738.3f-738.3k, right of woman to sue abortionist for negligent failure to comply with state law on abortion

Section 22: Repeals 63 OS 1-740.2A, 740.13, and 740.14, forms for reporting abortions.

Section 23: Repeals 63 OS 1-744-744.6, another parental notification requirement.

Section 24: Repeals 63 OS 1-746.1, 746.3-746.5, and 746.7-10, requiring publication of truthful information about abortion, and giving right to sue abortionists for violation of law

Section 25: Repeals 63 OS 1-746.2 and 746.6, informed consent. Thus, SB 13 allows abortionists to trick women into getting abortions without fear of penalty or lawsuits

Section 26: Repeals 63 OS 1-748, abortionist must have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles

Section 27: Repeals 63 OS 1-737.7-737.16, Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment from Abortion Act

Section 28: Repeals 63 OS 1-738.5a, general severability clause on abortion laws

Section 29: Repeals 63 OS 1-749-150, which requires keeping fetal tissue when the mother is under 14, for evidence against statutory rapist

Section 30: Repeals 63 OS 1-751 and 753-755, Humanity of the Unborn Child Act

Section 31: Repeals 63 OS 1-752, signage for Humanity of the Unborn Child Act

Section 32: Repeals 63 OS 740.15-19, Choosing Childbirth Act. Thus, SB 13 eliminates programs to help women choose childbirth rather than abortion

Section 33: Voids all other state and federal law regarding abortions and orders all state officials and employees to refuse to answer any federal lawsuit or engage in any way to defend the state

Section 24: Declares that all of the sections and laws mentioned are completely inseverable, meaning that any judge that rules any part to be unconstitutional has to find all parts of the law unconstitutional.

The Constitutional Aspects of SB13 - Part 2

The Constitutional Aspects of SB 13

Tony Lauinger out of Tulsa has self funded most of the anti abortion movement here in the state. A wealthy man, rather than enjoying his life without controversy he has made his life's work trying to outlaw abortion. Tony is the state chairman of Oklahomans for Life, the vice chairman of National Right to Life, and co founder of Tulsans for Life. The abolitionists, Dan Fisher, T. Russel Hunter, John Michener, among a few, have been publicaly attacking Tony claiming that he won't stop abortion because he is making money off the fight. The reality is that Tony doesn't solicit money for the effort, he pays out of his own pocket.

The abolitionist crazies keep rebranding themselves once they have sullied a name beyond redemption. Their latest name is Free the States, but the same old crazy activists still run the show without even bothering to change the public face of the group. And these groups actively fund raise, gathering over $121,000 for the Dan Fisher governor race and they are raising money to attack Senator Smalley over his pro life stance. Both Michener. Fisher, and Russel Hunter are raising money instead of self funding yet their finances are not transparent.

The abolitionists have set out to make pro life a dirty word. They are good enough charlatans to mislead a lot of well intentioned people but the reality is that they are in this for the notoriety and little else.

Those promoting SB 13 claim that it is necessary to repeal all pro life laws because pro life laws recognize the fact that courts have ruled abortion is legal. Yet they dismiss the idea that many things that are crimes have varying degrees of penalties. An example is wrongful death or negligent homicide instead of murder charges being filed. Or conversion of property or receiving stolen property versus theft charges. For the law to work it requires differentiation between offenses and that the penalty match the crime to avoid alienating the general public and them losing faith in the fairness of government.

Another point that the abolitionists push is nullification, something that the liberty and Tea Party crowd both believe in on some issues. Indeed the abolitionists mention sanctuary states but the difference is between passive resistance, in that the states simply refuse to enforce federal laws, and active opposition where the state goes looking for a fight with the feds.

Were SB 13 to become law, Oklahomans would have no protection for unborn children. Christian hospitals would be forced to engage in abortion, assisted suicide, and other practices that are contrary to their faith. The abortionists would challenge the law in court and with the Oklahoma Supreme Court being more liberal than the federal Supreme Court they would happily accept the bad parts of SB 13 while peeling off the good parts. All of the hard won anti abortion laws would be stricken down while also striking down the prohibition of abortion. The abolitionists believe that the poorly written inseverability clause would prevent this from happening but whoever wrote the bill was ignorant of the law and how courts work.

There are two types of unconstitutionality:

• a law can be ruled "unconstitutional per se," meaning there is no way that law could be ruled constitutional, or
• a law could instead be ruled "unconstitutional as applied," meaning that while the law might be constitutional in some circumstances, but not in the particular case the court is then ruling on.

What the courts would do is rule the ban on abortion in SB 13 unconstitutional as applied, each and every time a case came up. The court would not rule SB 13's ban on abortion being always unconstitutional, "unconstitutional per se," so the "inseverability" clause would not go into effect.

Then the court would also uphold the repealer of all the pro-life laws. So if SB 13 passes, a 30-year old man could seduce and molest your 16-year old daughter and get her pregnant, and he would be able to take your daughter to an abortion clinic without your even knowing about it. Christian hospitals would no longer have the protection of "conscience clauses" that SB 13 repeals, so they would be forced to allow abortions at Integris Baptist, Mercy, and St. Anthony's. Abortion clinics could lie to women considering abortion, to trick them into going through with it even when they had doubts, because SB 13 repeals "informed consent" laws. And there are many other examples of the bad consequences of SB 13.

Examples of courts ruling a law unconstitutional as applied instead of unconstitutional per se are:

Gonzales v. Carhart i(2007), n which the US Supreme Court declined to rule the federal ban on partial-birth abortion "unconstitutional per se," but ruled that the ban might be unconstitutional as applied to a situation where the mother's health was at risk.

FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life (WRTL II) (2007), in which the US Supreme Court declined to rule certain FEC regulations on political speech "unconstitutional per se", but said those same regulations might be unconstitutional as applied to particular situations.

The Consequences of SB13 - Part 1

  February 24th 2019 Newsletter

Three Views on SB 13, the Abolitionists Bill

How do lawyers look at SB 13?

We're presenting three opinions that focus on the actual language of SB 13 and how it would impact the state and how the courts will interpret the language. All names withheld to protect them from backlash from the abolitionists:

The Legal Ramifications of SB 13

Senate Bill 13, by Senator Joseph Silk (R-Broken Bow), will take the Right to Life cause backward in Oklahoma, contrary to the bill's stated purpose. SB 13 would remove most current pro-life protections for unborn children, such as preventing abortion on a minor girl where the abortionist has not obtained the consent of the girl's parent; preventing abortion where the mother has not been informed about alternatives to abortion and about the physical consequences of abortion; etc.

In exchange, SB 13 purports to outlaw all abortions. Unfortunately, neither federal nor state courts will uphold this provision of the bill. Those courts will, however, be happy to uphold those parts of SB 13 that remove current pro-life protections. In other words, if SB 13 were to be enacted, the courts would potentially enforce all of the bad parts of the bill, and certainly refuse to uphold the parts that purport to stop abortion.

The proponents of SB 13 likely realize that the courts will not uphold the parts of the bill that restrict abortion. Other parts of the bill attempt to compel the state to defy federal courts that would strike down SB 13. This process of deliberate defiance of federal courts is sometimes called "nullification."

Nullification has been tried in the past and has failed. Our nation fought a great war in the 1860s in part to settle the question of whether a state could nullify federal laws with which it disagreed, in that case involving slavery. The nullification side lost.

It would not take a war now for the federal government to bring a state to heel when it came to a nullification effort. Threatening to withhold just a small portion of states' share of federal highway funds in the 1980s forced every state to raise its legal drinking age to 21. If the federal government withheld even a small portion of Oklahoma's Medicaid funds, it would bankrupt many rural hospitals. Or federal officials could cut Oklahoma off from the federal banking system, making credit cards and checks in Oklahoma worthless.

How would the public then perceive the cause of saving the lives of unborn children? Not well. It would set back public support for the cause by decades.

Some have cited California's efforts to not cooperate with federal immigration officials in deportations as an example of defiance of the federal government that appears to work. But there's a crucial distinction between passively not cooperating with the federal government, and instead taking active steps to defy the federal government. 

Passive non-cooperation with federal authorities, for instance in enforcement of immigration laws (or enforcement of gun control laws) might indeed work. For the federal government to punish a state for such non-cooperation, it would have to prove that the state DID SOMETHING in violation of federal law. But it would be easy for a state to say in its defense, "We didn't DO SOMETHING to violate federal law." The federal government would then have to prove that the state did not do ENOUGH to comply with federal law, a much tougher case to establish.

But if a state took efforts to prosecute abortion contrary to current federal jurisprudence, that state would NOT be able to say, "We didn't DO SOMETHING to violate federal law." In fact, the very language of SB 13 requires DOING SOMETHING to violate federal law. Thus, the federal government would easily be able to prove that the state violated federal law, and to impose penalties to bring that state to heel.

Fighting back against encroaching federal authority may be a worthy cause, but using the abortion issue in that cause is misguided and self-defeating. Those who wish to push nullification should use an issue for which passive noncooperation with federal law is the mechanism, where nullification might actually win. Using abortion as the mechanism is doomed to defeat.

Also problematic for the cause is SB 13's provision to punish women who seek abortion. Recognizing that many desperate pregnant women are misled or coerced into abortion by false statements like "it's just a blob of tissue, not a baby," and "your life will be ruined if you don't get an abortion," mainstream right to life efforts seek only to punish those who perform abortions, not the often desperate women who are tempted to seek an abortion. By seeking to punish desperate and under-informed women, SB 13 gains no effective protection for unborn children, but only puts right to life efforts in a bad light. It's like punishing a desperate father seeking to borrow money at a usurious interest rate to feed his family, rather than punishing the loan shark who charges that interest.

In addition to bringing the right to life cause into public disrepute, and to removing many current laws which provide some protection for unborn children, SB 13 would result in Oklahoma's tax dollars going to pay the legal fees of the abortion industry. The abortion industry sues to challenge most pro-life laws. Sometimes they win, and the state has to pay their legal bills. If the law being challenged has a decent chance of being upheld, the risk is worth it, even if the law ultimately is not upheld. But a bill like SB 13 has zero chance of being upheld in court, a fact the proponents of SB 13 acknowledge. Thus SB 13 will put more money into the hands of abortionists.

Pro-life Oklahomans are understandably frustrated with the slow progress of efforts to protect unborn children since the 1973 Roe v. Wade US Supreme Court case that tragically established a judicially-created "right" to abortion. But the answer is not a misguided attempt like SB 13, which will actually set the cause back, and at a time when the pro-life movement has made significant progress, not only in changing laws but also in changing the federal judiciary.

A football game is a good analogy. Impatient fans can be frustrated with the "3 yards and a cloud of dust" strategy of gradually moving the ball down the field. But to appease those understandable feelings of frustration by making every play a triple-reverse, or a long pass, is foolhardy. The likely result is a sack for loss of yardage, or worse, a fumble or interception for loss of possession of the ball entirely. And continuing the abortion analogy, the opponents have the ultimate defensive secondary -- the federal courts, making an interception or fumble (i.e. even fewer legal opportunities to oppose abortion) even more likely. Progress on abortion, like progress in football when the opponent's secondary is the strength of their team, is forced to be slow.

At this moment in U.S. history, the pro-life movement has the ball in a slow but gradual march downfield. Let's not let impatience with the slow progress goad us into misguided bills like SB 13 which, like desperation football plays, are destined to set the cause backward.
In part 2, we'll investigate more

A Gut Shot Cop and Dead Criminal

February 17^th 2019 Newsletter

Soft on Crime Agenda Leads to

a Gut Shot Cop and Dead Criminal

The shooting last week in Del City left two wounded cops and one dead criminal. The man was being held for shoplifting a small hand tool by a security guard who was assisted by an off duty Amber police officer. When a Del City officer showed up the criminal produced a pistol and blasted two of the three officers before being fatally shot. One would wonder, why would someone choose to pull a gun and face death or prison or a life on the run were they to survive, over a shoplifting misdemeanor that wouldn't likely even result in an arrest?

Meet 25 year old Gabriel Lane Carter, a criminal on a fast track with destiny, aided by liberal judges and liberal activists.

Comrade Kannady Confronting the State Chamber of Commerce

Rep. Chris Kannady on Russian TV Attacking

the U.S. Government for Prosecuting a Terrorist

Comrade Kannady Confronting

the State Chamber of Commerce

Paying Back Campaign Donors by Attacking Workers Comp Reforms

Supporting Terrorists on Russian TV Just One of Kannady's Skills

Well you can't predict politics in Oklahoma. Last year Comrade Republican Chris Kannady tapped the Chambercrats for funding to take down conservative Republicans and this year he stabs them in the heart with a 178 page bill that would roll back much of the Workers Comp reforms passed a few years ago. Comrade Kannady did raise quite a bit of money from state lawyers, mostly all Democrats, and Comrade Kannady himself works for Foshee &Yafee, a downtown law firm that is hip deep in Worker Comp claims.

Unions Begin Legislative Assault On Public Schools

 Unions Begin Legislative Assault On Public  Charter Schools

  David Van of Sooner Politics wrote a troubling story about the teacher unions targeting the state's Charter Schools at the Capitol.  These Charter Schools are refreshing, much higher scores for the kids, higher paid teachers, and all that on about one third what the government schools are raking in from taxpayers.  Parents can hire and fire their kid's teacher and teachers get paid more if  their kids succeed.  It is the best privatization effort ever seen in state government.

You can read the story at this link.

Oklahoma Traitors Vote Against Second Amendment Rights

Oklahoma Traitors Vote Against Second Amendment Rights

  Six despicable bastards chose to spit on every Oklahoman's Constitutional rights last week. Liberal Republicans Carol Bush of HD 70, Trey Caldwell of HD 63, Jadine Nollan of HD 66, Daniel Pae of HD 62, John Talley of HD 33, and Randy Worthen of HD 64 joined 24 liberal Democrats voting against HB 2597. The bill will remove all licensing and training requirements for open or concealed carrying of fire arms but it gives a list of those that are not qualified including those convicted of domestic abuse, assault and battery that caused grave physical injury, illegal drug use or possession, or stalking. The bill adds a prohibition of other hand weapons like loaded canes, brass knuckles, or chains on college or vo tech campuses. The law prohibits illegal aliens from being armed as well.

An Example of Ego Over the Common Good

An Example of Ego Over the Common Good of the Republican Party

Is She a Republican or Libertarian?

One thing that the RINOs and Democrats do right is to field one candidate in a race or at least have one primary candidate and perhaps a second acting as a spoiler against the conservative running. But they fund and back only one candidate for office instead of allowing a passel of wanna be candidates that split up the support and the primary vote.

Conservatives tend not to have that kind of discipline and it is one of the reasons why we lose races.

An example is the race for Tulsa County GOP Vice Chair. The Chairman race has shaken out, only one real candidate for the office, one that enjoys quite a bit of respect in the county. But the Vice Chair race attracted a campaign consultant named Natasha Dahm, sister of Senator Nathan Dahm.

Why is this a bad thing?

Kill the Mother If the Baby Might Survive

Senator Silk

  

Kill the Mother if the Baby Might Survive

Abolitionists Attempt to Remove a Mother's Right to Self Defense

Radical abolitionists have pushed Senator Joseph Silk to file a radical anti abortion bill, SB 13 which can send people to life in prison for participating in an abortion. The bill has no provision for medical necessity to save the life of the mother, instead preferring to prosecute both doctor and mother as murderers should a medically required abortion occur. A tubal pregnancy is one example, that is an embryo that has taken hold outside of the womb, resulting in the destruction of the reproductive organs and even in the death of the woman.

Even Ronald Reagan had set aside self defense as an exemption for abortion. It isn't that the woman doesn't want to have the child, it is that if she does so she risks her life. Shouldn't her husband and existing children have the right to decide if mom survives or is a tubal pregnancy or any of a host of other reasons for a medical emergency the right thing to preserve?

 

Regan did a magnificent job of explaining why he chose self defense for a mother as an abortion exception:

Governor Stitt's State of the Union Speech

Governor Stitt's State of the Union Speech

Well, Oklahoma dodged the Medicaid expansion that we warned Stitt about in our last newsletter. That was good but the rest of his State of the State speech was troubling to some. Read this report by Sooner Politics and tell us if Stitt is going to be a conservative or not.  We know for sure that he is surrounded by establishment types, the very ones that left the state in a financial mess after eight years of Fallin.  Will they control him or will he find his own voice?

Of course all of that speech might have been grist for the grist mill, not to be taken seriously. I hope so, pumping more money into education when the state teachers are doing such a poor job of educating the kids seems silly at best.

GOP Chairman Refuses to Organize Grant County to Represent Republicans

 

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February 10^th 2019 Newsletter

Another Reason Why GOP Chairman Pam Pollard Must Go

On January 6^th this year we published a story about the importance of the GOP precinct meetings and attending the conventions to vote on the crucial rules and resolutions that might put teeth into the Party Platform to force the elected officials back to the center and away from the left. Below is one of the stories that we heard where Republicans tried to get involved, attend their precinct meeting, only to be rebuffed by County GOP officials and GOP Chairman Pam Pollard.

A Grant County Republican emailed STP complaining that his county GOP officials weren't responding to his requests for information on the precinct meetings. We put him in touch with the State GOP Chairman, Pam Pollard. To her credit she emailed back within a few days, helped no doubt by the fact that the STP was copied on the original email requesting help. The man was given his county GOP contact info and one would have thought that would solve the problem.

Yet inexplicably, here was the response that this Republican received from their county GOP:

Precinct meeting Attendance Down.. Why?

Precinct meeting Attendance Down

Why?

Reports from Tulsa matched up with personal experience in Oklahoma City, precinct meeting attendance was way down, quite low, in many precincts. In HD 94 the attendance was six people up until thirty minutes into the meeting, up one at that point, and one soul wandered in a few minutes before closing time. To their credit, the organizer allowed the man to register anyway and become a delegate to the county convention.

Apathy or disgust? Why did so many refuse to attend? Turnout was easily 50% off a bad year.

It could be people settling down after Trump was elected, thinking that things were on the mend.

It could be the massive tax increases pushed by the Republicans in the last election and the suppression of the budget numbers that proved the tax increases were not needed, that we had a budget surplus.

It could be the disgust of Republican grassroots and voters to watching rogue elements of the GOP attack conservative Republicans while House and Senate leadership did nothing.

The GOP must make a turn around and re brand itself. The election of Trump proved that moderate Republicans weren't what the country wanted or needed. The donor class fought with all it had to defeat Trump and they will continue to work against his policies and plans and will double down at getting the states to undo what gains Trump has made.

What the GOP needs is a new leader that will enforce the Party Platform, you are with us 80% of the issues or you are drummed out of the Party, only that will restore confidence in the Republican brand standing for smaller government, local control, and personal responsibility instead of higher and higher taxes paying for a nanny state.

Stitt's First Chance to Show Conservative Values

 

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Click Here For Previous Newsletter Archives  Click Here to Sign Up for the Sooner Tea Party Email List  Forward this email to a friend Click on the link below to donateand tell us what you want your donation used for in the comment section  Sooner Tea Party Donations February 3rd 2019 Newsletter Medicaid Expansion Raises it's Ugly Head Once Again Stitt's First Chance to Show Conservative Values Falling got the crap kicked out of her over Obama Care and one of it's key components; increasing Medicaid to tens of thousands of working people. Her own chief of staff said so in an email along with blaming the Tea Party for the beating. But Fallin was wise enough to know that the issue would resonate with conservatives in the state and having the Tea Party beating her did not bode well for the next election so she folded in 2012 much to the dismay of the liberals and donor class. Seven years later and we are seeing Governor Stitt facing the same pressures and claims of easy money that is being thrown away, one billion dollars per year according to the other side. But in the end expanding Medicaid is expanding welfare to people that should and could carry their own weight if the government refused to do things for them. Much is made of the coverage gap, those too poor to qualify for the Obama Care subsidies but making too much to get Medicaid with their welfare package. Using the other sides data, there are 84,000 Oklahomans in this financial state, 51% are non Caucasian, 76% of them are adults without dependent kids, 42% are women, and 53% have one other person in the family that does work a job. If we did expand Medicaid, another 142,000 Oklahomans would become eligible for Medicaid, 58,000 more than are currently in the coverage gap. Around 40,000 of them might start making enough to qualify for the Obama Care subsidies. But that is normal, people's financial states change constantly and most are increasing their wages each year through wage increases, inflation, or learning better skills or getting better paying jobs. The problem is that nearly every single state that has expanded Medicaid saw the number enrolled jump 150% more than expected. Free medical care, why wouldn't the leeches of society not grab on to that? Given a choice of actually working a real job that had benefits, shelling out some of their wages to pay their own medical costs, or staying in that dead end job if they even had a job seems pretty attractive to these sorts. Medicaid was sold to U.S. Taxpayers as a safety net for the most vulnerable, pregnant mothers, kids, elderly, and the disabled. Nothing wrong with that as long as it is basic care that the lower income taxpayers can afford to pay for. The problem is that Obama Care allows people earning 138% of the poverty level to get on Medicaid instead of paying their own way. That creates the moral hazard of not trying to do better at work in order to keep the meager government benefits they already have. Worse, Medicaid is nearly one third of all state spending, 30% of the 18.2 billion we spent in 2018. Expanding Medicaid means adding at least 50% more or 48% of the state budget, getting close to the 55% we spend on education. Cannot everyone see this problem, 78% of our state budget going to education and welfare medical costs? And they want to take that to 93%? Impossible of course, they would have to raise massive new taxes or fees in order to cover that 50% increased Medicaid spending. And that is just the state pittance, the federal budget picks up the rest. Governor Stitt has said that he is opposed to the expansion of Medicaid but there is pressure from unions and we might see a state question on the ballot in 2020. These unions are health care workers and the State Chamber of Commerce has long held onto the Holy Grail of getting health insurance costs off their company payrolls so they along with the liberals will be allies with the unions. One of the lies used to sell Medicaid expansion is the claim that government spending creates economic growth. But if Oklahoma expanded Medicaid it would cost .9 billion dollars at the federal level and .1 billion at the state level. We will be told that spending a billion dollars of tax money will invigorate the states economy. The real truth is that this billion dollars must first be taxed out of the private sector and re distributed, diverting much needed cash from investments or paychecks which itself will certainly slow economic growth in the state. Yes, the 142,000 new Medicaid recipients would be better off but the rest of us would be that much poorer. And with now free health care, expect the new recipients to use more of it and expect everyone's medical costs to skyrocket as the increase in patients creates a competition for available services and creates a vast profit increase for medical providers and hospitals. Why else would they push the issue if not to make more money? Some will argue that Medicaid can control prices as they set the cost of medical services they pay. Does anyone really think that the doctors and hospitals and medical supply companies would support a plan that takes paying customers and turns them into welfare recipients unless they benefited handsomely at the end? In the end expanding Medicaid means slowing economic activity, expanded taxation, and fewer jobs being created. Hopefully the Republican leadership and Governor Stitt won't fall for the rosy predictions and will reject Medicaid expansion and focus on getting people back to work instead of making their poverty more comfortable.

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