State Rep. Gus Blackwell released a video and press release yesterday saying he was “appalled” by a legislative measure sponsored by fellow Republican John Trebilcock that is primarily designed to reduce the number of pain-management treatment providers in rural Oklahoma. His reaction comes two days after conservative blogger Christopher Arps’ post in the Examiner.com titled, “Dear patients: I’m from the government, and I’m here to hurt you!”

It’s hard to imagine a bill worse than the one that killed Sen. Brian Bingman’s chances to succeed Glenn Coffee as senate leader. But the chatter (and laughter) is starting to build about SB 1133, a bill that rolls back the scope of practice for Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists.

CRNA’s provide the bulk of pain management to rural Oklahomans. CRNA’s are supervised by doctors, and are primarily responsible for pain relief and anesthesia delivery in the 57 counties where no anesthesiologists practice. So is there a problem with CRNA’s? Patient advocates say no: in fact, they point to the fact that no CRNA’s are in trouble with their boards. They don’t want to practice medicine or expand their scope of practice the way optometrists and chiropractors have been doing for the past decade. Read more…

Blackwell further states in the release that he believes the legislation is designed to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.

“For much of the past decade, organized medicine has been telling us the greatest threat to Oklahoma’s patients is expansion of surgical privileges by non-surgeons. They’ve bought ads, issued press releases, raised campaign funds and sounded the alarm bell. Now they suddenly whirl and attack medical providers, CRNAs that legally and safely operate entirely within their scope of practice. This is madness, and I suspect it’s organized and orchestrated for profit or payback.”

Rep. Blackwell says the bill’s hypocrisy is evident with only a cursory examination.

“Not one patient advocate group has come forward asking for this bill. In fact, the patient advocates I’ve talked to are puzzled about why organized medicine has walked away from what they’ve been saying for years is the central threat to patient safety: dangerous expansion of scope of practice by untrained medical professionals.”

Blackwell’s last line is priceless and should be a wake up call for all Oklahomans:

“Now they attack CRNAs: Does that mean they’ve been lying to us for much of the past decade about the primary threat to patients on Oklahoma? Are they lying now? Regardless, this laughable bill and the rogue’s gallery of characters pushing for it guarantee one thing: Jay Leno, David Letterman and Jon Stewart won’t soon run out of material with which to mock Oklahoma anytime soon I’m sad to say.”

Related:

NewsOK.com: Pain management bill draws debate in Oklahoma House

Your Vote Counts: “Debating Health Care in Oklahoma”

Rep. John “kissing bandit” Trebilcock

“When I told Mr. Trebilcock that I smelled a strong odor of alcohol coming from him, he replied that he had just kissed a girl that had been drinking and that is why he smelled like he had been drinking,” the arresting officer wrote in the report.” (Tulsa World 4-2-07)

Examiner.com:

It’s hard to imagine a bill worse than the one that killed Sen. Brian Bingman’s chances to succeed Glenn Coffee as senate leader. But the chatter (and laughter) is starting to build about SB 1133, a bill that rolls back the scope of practice for Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. Read more…

I have previously written about some state’s rights initiatives which will be considered by the Oklahoma Legislature in an attempt to counter some recent expansive actions of the federal government.

Proponents of this legislation point to the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution which states that power not specifically given to the federal government by the Constitution shall be maintained within the states. This is an especially important component of our governance structure as we have a much greater opportunity to have our voices heard when the power of government is placed at the most localized level possible.

One of these state’s rights initiatives is House Joint Resolution 1054 authored by Representative Mike Ritze and Senator Randy Brogdon — and co-authored by several Legislators, including myself. The concept behind HJR 1054 was successfully introduced into the Arizona Legislature last year in response to the federal government’s attempt to expand its role in the health care industry. HJR 1054 would allow Oklahomans to vote on placing a new section into the Oklahoma Constitution. If approved by Oklahoma voters, the new provision would state that laws “shall not compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer or health care provider to participate in any health care system.” Read more…

Examiner.com:

As the Oklahoma Political News Service reported in late January, Sen. Bingman was given the task of carrying SB 2298, as a political payback bill. But the unintended consequences made it in effect a pro-drug dealer bill that embattled senate leader Glenn Coffee desperately needed to get the official senate albatross, Fred Morgan, out of the building. Capitol insiders say the drug bill revelation and our previous reports last fall of Sen. Coffee’s emotional meltdown contributed to the derailment of Sen. Bingman’s bid on the first day of the legislature.

While the capitol press corps ignored the story, the Bingman defeat nonetheless leaked out through other media reports, with Oklahoma City’s News9 once again scooping the capitol gang. Two days after his Monday defeat, and with his long-term chances to succeed Coffee fading into the sunset, one observer says an obviously freaked-out Bingman, carrying a copy of the OKPNS story, shuttled back and forth feverishly to get leadership to quietly re-assigned the bill, ironically, to Sen. Anthony Sykes’ committee, which would have ensured a quiet death to this colossally-bad idea.

However, last week Bingman sought to put even more distance between himself and this controversy, withdrawing as author on February 8th. Then on Thursday the 11th, the bill was pulled from Sykes’ committee and re-assigned to the Judiciary Committee, so the Coffee-Bingman payback bill continues to attempt to find new life in the political equivalent of a witness protection program. Read more…

Sources say a deal to plug the holes in the Oklahoma FY 2010 budget using ‘Rainy Day’ funds and federal stimulus monies is imminent.   Our sources say early morning caucus meetings for both houses will take place early Wednesday morning, with an announcement of the deal following soon after.

Developing…..

Related:

NewsOK.com: (2/17/10) Gov. Henry says Oklahoma budget deal is near

Over the weekend, “blogger” Mike McCarville continued his unhealthy man crush on our editor and OKPNS. What else can you say? Three posts about our editor in one week recently, with one even coming at 11:44 pm!

In a rare original article – not his usual cut and paste job – McCarville compares his “blog’s” daily visitors with OKPNS’ companion site the Oklahoma Political News Service’s Legislator’s blog. Congratulations Mike! Yes, you have more visitor’s than our secondary blog that is updated whenever a legislator decides to post a piece.

Related:

Video: OKPNS & McCarville: “Both Good @ Covering What’s Going On @ The State Capitol”

Sad. Blogger Has Public Breakdown Over “Constant Needling”

According to the latest Rasmussen poll, 83% of Americans blame the deficit on politicians’ unwillingness to cut spending. Former Congressman Watts has penned an  editorial today comparing the Democrats spending and programs to “bad dog food.”

“Washington, Please Quit Digging.

Americans don’t like what they’ve seen over the last eight months. President Obama signed an omnibus spending bill last December, costing $447 billion. It expanded federal spending by 12 percent while inflation grew by 1.8 percent.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, there were 5,224 pork barrel projects that cost $3.9 bllion, including one called “The Shrimp Industry Fishing Effort Research Continuation,” costing us all $700,000. This irresponsible spending makes us all a bit cynical.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two institutions that were central to the economic meltdown, were virtually given a blank check by the US Treasury last Christmas Eve. Estimated cost over the next three years — $400 billion.

By the 2006 elections, Republicans in Congress and the Bush White House had dug a ditch so deep they couldn’t get out of it, and surprisingly in some ways, they kept on digging. This seems to be where the Democrats are today. Read more…

Related:

WSJ: Deficit Hawk Turns Dove at Home

Sen. Coburn’s comments on Sen. Kent Conrad, Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee:

Conrad says one thing, and then votes hundreds of times the other way—to spend money,” says Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, one of the Senate’s strictest spending hawks and among only six senators who sought no funding for home-state projects through the “earmark” process last year.

Examiner.com:

Just days after President Obama called for bi-partisanship at his state of the union address and at the House Republican retreat, the Democratic Governor’s Association sent out today this highly partisan and offensive fundraising email to its supporters:

Read more…

Open letter to Speaker Benge/President Pro-Tempore Coffee:

I write to express my deep concern and disappointment in the Legislature’s action last session to direct $16 million dollars to OMRF and $1 Million to the Jim Thorpe Association.

As an active Republican (I currently am Chairman of the Cleveland County Republican Party), I am particularly disappointed that this multi-million dollar pass through was orchestrated by a Republican controlled Legislature.

Once upon a time, Republicans used to oppose such inappropriate and underhanded expenditures of taxpayers’ money. In fact, it wasn’t too long ago when you were in the minority that Republicans would vehemently oppose these pass through deals made by the Democrats. Like most Oklahomans, and certainly the majority of Republicans, I remember the dog food plant that the Democrat-controlled Legislature appropriated tax dollars for. Read more…