What we have here is failure to communicate even though these folks are all in the same building and probably on the same floor.
So the childish “I’ll kill your bills because you killed my bills” has broken out into the public, thanks to the professional journalism work of Tres Savage and his staff. I won’t take you through the “who done who wrong, when, why and how” of this kerfuffle because you can go to various videos posted in the official House and Senate websites and discern the good guys from the bad guys.
The main bill at the center of this inside baseball flap deals with providing health and mental health services and coverage specifically to firefighters and the police because, according to the authors, they suffer greatly from PTSD and often commit suicide. The president of the Oklahoma Fraternal Order of Police happened to be in the room and was asked by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chris Kannady how many actually succeeded in ending their lives.
Well, isn’t it great that power brokers in the House of Representatives, specifically Chairman Kannady and also author of the bill, apparently now cry crocodile tears over the lack of both physical and mental health care for our uniformed heroes … but over the last 10 years every elected Republican voted to refuse billions of federal dollars that would be reaping the benefit of too many good things because they voted over and over to turn down Medicaid expansion because of a certain name associated with it.
How ironic, but you get the hint. ObamaCare was finally adopted in our state only after a vote of the people and then Gov. Kevin Stitt tried to have it killed by both his appointees to the Oklahoma Health Care Authority and/or the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
So Kannady has got his whitey tighties in a snit because the Senate is playing musical chairs – literally – due to the fact that Kingfish Greg Treat got embarrassed by his own Republican caucus and lost his school voucher bill that the House was going to kill anyway.
I actually strongly agree with Kannady’s bill but I don’t know why he thought it would become law. It would have helped fire and police folks who suffer from PTSD and thus cost insurance companies and their shareholders money.
Workers lose. Insurance companies win.
Insurance lobbyists stuck in the shive; Sen. Julie Daniels, she of anti-abortion fame, delivered the coup de grace at the request of the very peeved Treat who, by the way, cut his political teeth working for the now departed and insurance industry water carrier Sen. Tom Coburn.
Oh, you didn’t know that? Well, you weren’t paying attention … as usual.
Yes, the whole sordid story is sad, driven by egos, loud speeches, big threats, small minds and no good results. So what else is new along the political sewer known as 23rd Street?
Not much because based on candidate filings – most of these two-bit players will return next year to provide you, the taxpayers, more of the same. Of course, they will only have the opportunity to do that if you continue to serve as their usual co-conspirators when you cast your ballots for them again.
