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Some Oklahoma lawmakers have proposed a plan to expand Medicaid eligibility through the Insure Oklahoma program. But Oklahoma Senate Bill 605 and similar iterations, known as the “Oklahoma Plan,” are just a ploy to implement Obamacare Medicaid expansion in the Sooner State and shift hundreds of thousands of able-bodied, working age adults onto Oklahoma’s Medicaid rolls. The plan has three major components: (1) massively increase spending to implement Obamacare Medicaid expansion by way of premium assistance; (2) create a brand new welfare program for 628,000 able-bodied adults; and (3) propose a program that other states have found to be twice as expensive as predicted and with no measurable performance goals or changes in health outcomes. Oklahoma policymakers should reject Obamacare Medicaid expansion, SB 605, or any other plan to “access federal dollars” that expands welfare, and instead refocus their efforts on improving the Medicaid program for the most vulnerable and promoting meaningful health care reforms.

Enrollment in previously reviewed states has blasted further past projected maximums, and new data from additional expansion states indicate the problem is even worse than previously known.

The Oklahoma Health Care Authority has proposed a plan to “rebalance” Medicaid eligibility in the Sooner State. But this “rebalancing” is really just an Obamacare expansion by another name.

Today in Forbes, OCPA president Jonathan Small, along FGA's Jonathan Ingram and Josh Archambault, explains why OHCA's Medicaid "rebalance" plan would put the truly needy in danger and create perputual budget crises.