Capitol Spotlight for Tuesday, April 8, or thereafter

Bills spark health insurance standoff
By Jim Campbell
OPA Capitol News Bureau
  
A windblown rally for "Steffanie's Law" dramatized a perceived standoff 
involving bills calling for insurance payment of specific medical costs and a 
measure sharply restricting further mandates on health insurance companies.
But the issues are separate and should not be linked, said Rep. Kris Steele, R-
Shawnee, and Sen. Andrew Rice, D-Oklahoma City, authors of Senate Bill 1521.
"I do not believe Steffanie's Law is a new mandate," said Steele, adding it only 
requires payment for expenses of patients who choose clinical trials to save 
their lives.
Steffanie Collins, 18, of Noble, died the day after her bill passed the Senate. 
It faces a deadline this week for hearing in the House Insurance Committee 
chaired by Rep. Ron Peterson, R-Tulsa.
Peterson is author of House Bill 3111, requiring a cost analysis paid for by the 
requesting party and a two-year process for new coverage mandates.
Steele said Peterson had agreed to put Steffanie's Law into another bill if it 
is not heard by Thursday but did not know if it HB 3111 was intended.
Collins' father said the family faces $400,000 in bills denied by her insurance 
provider after she underwent a clinical trial at the University of Oklahoma 
Health Sciences Center.
"If we get a divorce, then hopefully we could get Medicaid or welfare," Monty 
Collins shouted into a gale raking the capitol steps. "I could quit my job 
tomorrow and then maybe get health care from the state."
Rice said the Collins had bought private insurance and "done everything expected 
of them in society." The demonstrators, he said, are asking for fairness.
"They are demanding the right to act on the best advice of their physician when 
considering clinical trials as a way to improve their chance to live," Rice 
said.
Rice said the experience of 23 other states is that clinical trial coverage is 
minimal, sometimes cheaper. 
Steele stressed the importance of clinical trials to the Health Sciences Center.
***
Another bill facing a deadline in Peterson's committee requires coverage for 
autism, a bio-neurological condition affecting one in 150 births.  
Wayne Rohde of Edmond, whose 10-year-old son Nick also has a law named for him, 
was in the capitol steps crowd.
He said he sees a "very transparent" effort to make a deal for HB 3111 "which is 
stuck in the Senate and will not pass."
Child advocate Anne Roberts said Peterson had met with a large group of parents 
and "we are hopeful" about Nick's Law.
A House committee stripped HB1549 of a $250,000 liability requirement for 
nursing homes and set up a task force study of long-term care.
Long-Term Care Ombudsman Esther Houser said it has "serious flaws" in that the 
panel does not include representatives of the elderly and their advocates.
###
Quote of the week:  Rep, Randy Terrill, R-Moore, discussing a Uniform Anatomical 
Gift Act and seeking assurance that bodies would not be sold for a profit. He 
took note of an exhibit at Oklahoma's Science Museum.
"My wife could donate me and the next thing I'm on display at the Omniplex."
 HHH