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”

Great work from Okiepundit!

Okie Pundit is still receiving new information, but this is what we know at this time about contributions made to Representative Dan Sullivan, Assistant Majority Floor Leader, and Senator Cliff Aldridge.

Two Republican legislators accepted a total of $24,000 in campaign contributions over a period of three days in September from an insurance company that stands to gain financially from recommendations made by a task force that studied the possible privatization of Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation system. The Task force on Privatization of CompSource Oklahoma was studying whether to mutualize CompSource or sell it off to a private company.

Representative Dan Sullivan and Senator Cliff Aldridge, the two chairmen of the task force, each accepted $12,000 from the National American Insurance Company (NAICO) while the task force met.  Though initially Sullivan and Aldridge ostensibly claimed they could not say whether mutualization or privatization was the best course, by the end of the task force meetings in December both were big proponents of selling the system to a private company. In fact, Sullivan recently filed House Bill 2662, legislation that would require the state to sell CompSource by December 31, 2011.

And suddenly NAICO has emerged as the leading candidate in the politically-charged battle to purchase CompSource. Read more…

We told you last week about the smear job that was percolating between a powerful legislator and a lazy, willing reporter at the state’s main newspaper. well the smear job has come to light. We know the newspaper and reporter and now we know the candidate being maligned. The one piece missing in the puzzle is the identity of the powerful legislator?

Developing….

A reliable source tells OKPNS a super filthy political lie designed to torpedo a candidate for statewide office is being brewed up by a leading politician at the state legislature.

The source wouldn’t reveal the political affiliations of the conspirator or of the intended victim, but indicates the plotters have no designs on the office their target is seeking.

The source goes on to say the smear is a well-orchestrated effort, has been underway since mid-December. Our source says the conspirators may be recruiting allies in the media. “You’ll know it when you see it. It’s simply a matter of a bad person trying to destroy a good person. You’ll simply marvel at the integrity of the person they’re trying to smear, but you’ll understand in an instant what’s going when it’s revealed just who is behind the smear,” our source tells us.

Developing…..

After performances like today, it is easy to understand why rank and file Republicans continue to be disgusted by conniving RINO’s, and little wonder why thinking conservatives continue to abandon our party and head to the Tea Party movement.

Oklahoma is the reddest of Red States, but continuing to turn a blind eye to venal and corrupt leaders is an unwise way to build for the future. After last session’s revelations, Coffee has no political future as an elected official: even the indolent press corps knows that. We know Coffee is always worried about another attempt to send him packing. He has to keep his core gang of “consultants” in place to keep their money machine humming, and his future employment prospects as well.

So perhaps Oklahoma voters should turn their attention to the Republican senators who are helping him hold on to power. Perhaps the press corps would attempt to get every Republican senator to go on the record about their own support or opposition to Coffee. Perhaps monkeys will nest in the Capitol rotunda. Asking the press corps to do their job? It’s not going to happen. What IS possible is for the voters to ask their own senators if they support Coffee. If they do, it’s time to replace them in the next primary with Republicans who won’t tolerate corruption.

Related:

Examiner.com: No crystal ball, but close

Here’s an inaugural article from Oklahomans for Responsible Government’s new newsletter called The Rotunda:

“In a year when Oklahoma dealt with a $900-million shortfall in the state budget, why is the state spending nearly seven-million dollars to help balance the budgets of other states?

Oklahomans for Responsible Government recently searched through the vendors listed on the state’s Open Books database and found 140 payments by various departments of Oklahoma government to agencies or universities in 34 other states. These payments total $6,742,125!

Texas is the biggest recipient of Oklahoma money, getting $1,059,000 while Pennsylvania ($925,025), Kansas ($716,537) and Arkansas ($706,275) also get a big chunk. The largest single remittance is $715,000 that the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center pays to the University of Pittsburgh.

This shows a significant problem in the way the state handles its budget. A few elected officials get in a room and come up with a plan, an announcement is made to the masses and lawmakers are then asked to approve the spending. There is nothing written about how it will be spent or whether the money will stay in state or be sent across the Red River.”

“SB 834 is a devolution of the public school system from the Oklahoma State Board of Education into many individual school systems run by the local school boards.”

Huh???  Doesn’t government closest to the people work best?

Grindstone Journal:

Regressive Republicans can’t get rid of public schools wholesale, of course, but they can chip away at them. Their latest attack on public education is embodied in SB 834. They call it the “School District Empowerment Program.” Doesn’t that sound lovely? Isn’t it ironic that the deadliest poison comes in the most innocuous packaging?

SB 834 is a devolution of the public school system from the Oklahoma State Board of Education into many individual school systems run by the local school boards. That would be alarming enough, if that were all it did. Local school board elections are not as widely publicized as big state and national elections. District residents are often unaware that elections are taking place, and are even more ignorant of the qualifications of the candidates. School boards are vulnerable to capture by extremist groups such as the John Birch Society.

The bill does more than that, though. SB 834 proposes to undermine the whole foundation of the public school system by effectively reverting public schools to charter school status. In one fell swoop, the legislature could undermine all the progress we’ve made in collective bargaining, teacher pay and secular education. Read more…

State Rep. Mike Ritze joined other legislators in welcoming an official of the Consulate General of Israel to the Southwest recently.

Ben Stinsman, a native Texan and the cultural affairs officer at the Israeli consulate, spoke in the House Chamber Thursday, April 9.

Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, said he was pleased to welcome Stinsman.

“Oklahoma has a tradition of economic partnership and many other ties with Israel,” Ritze said. “The cultural officer who came to speak to the chamber is a University of Oklahoma graduate and a very passionate friend of Israel. I would love to see him here again in the future.”

State Rep. Mike Ritze introduces Ben Stinsman, a University of Oklahoma graduate and the cultural affairs officer of the Consulate General of Israel to the Southwest in the Oklahoma House of Representatives chamber last Thursday.

Stinsman addresses the House chamber.

We’re sure the OK Policy Institute fulfills a critical need by informing the public on state budget issues, but each press release they send out – even before they changed their name – offers the same doom and gloom predictions. Same material different dates. Here’s an excerpt from the latest release touting their new budget brief:

“Before wielding the axe to implement deep budget cuts that would harm the state’s economy and threaten essential public services, policymakers should be attentive to other options, including the state’s $600 million Rainy Day Fund and the potential availability of more than $2 billion in state fiscal relief as part of the economic stimulus package being considered by Congress,” said David Blatt, OK Policy’s Director of Policy.” Read more…

From Examiner.com

In uncertain and transformational times, populism has a way of finding itself onto Politician’s lips and into the legislation they propose. Though well meaning we’re sure, Rep. Keys bill to require the political parties to pay for their own primaries is bad public policy in our opinion.

This indirect “pay to play” plan makes us very uncomfortable- and may be deemed unconstitutional if it passed and went to the High Court.  If I was a political party with a money disadvantage, I would be claiming from the rooftops that this isn’t fair, especially if a neighboring state didn’t have such requirements. Read more…