Honorable Mary Fallin, Governor

Program Director

Health Policy Analysis and Memorandum

Although the State of Oklahoma has made significant progress in overcoming the disparities in the provision of high quality health care services to all citizens, the state has not been immune from the same forces that are driving the costs of health care up throughout the nation. For example, the GOP's official Web site for its health care alternative to The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (hereinafter alternatively "Obamacare") emphasizes that, "Skyrocketing medical liability insurance rates have distorted the practice of medicine, routinely forcing doctors to order costly and often unnecessary tests to protect themselves from lawsuits, often referred to as 'defensive medicine'" (A plan for replacement, 2012, para. 2). The rejection of federal funds that would have assisted with the development of a health care exchange for the state which remains a work in progress, but the...
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