Oklahomans without health insurance could lose their driver's licenses, state income tax deductions and even college football season tickets under a surprising approach proposed by state Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland.
Such penalties might help Oklahoma improve its dismal ranking in the number of residents who have no health insurance, Holland said Thursday during her agency's Summmit on the High Cost of Health Insurance.
"None of those are very pleasant, but there needs to be a consequence," Holland said. "We have developed this culture over the years that some don't feel like they have to pay their medical bills and its going to take us a while to overcome that, and it's going to be painful."
The idea has an obvious potential for problems, including unfairly targeting a large group of people who can't afford to buy medical coverage, consumer advocates say.
A survey this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one-third of Oklahomans have no health coverage, the highest rate of uninsured residents in the nation. A telephone survey released by the Oklahoma Health Care Authority found that about 16.7 percent of Oklahomans or 579,036 residents lack health insurance.
Uncompensated medical coverage in Oklahoma totals nearly $1 billion, Holland said.
While there might be some merit to targeting Oklahomans who earn enough money to afford health insurance but choose not to, policy makers must avoid penalizing those who can't afford or qualify for insurance, said Jeff Raymond, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Oklahoma Foundation for Consumer and Patients Rights.
"I think taking away a driver's license for this is probably too draconian," Raymond said. "You have to look at why people don't have insurance, and in some cases it's a choice but in other cases it's a lot more complicated than that."
State Rep. Kris Steele, co-chair of the House Health Care Reform Task Force, said requiring Oklahomans to purchase health insurance is not a popular stance among lawmakers, but that he is not opposed to mandated incentives.
"I believe the place to start is to create a situation within our state that people are without excuse for not having health insurance," Steele said. "Once we get to the point where people are without excuse, then we create the incentives."
Those incentives would include rewarding those who obtain insurance and punishing those who don't, said Steele, R-Shawnee.
"You need the carrot and the stick," he said.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
