Health insurance mandate faces huge resistance in Oklahoma....what's wrong w/people?

[spanone]

Dr. Dalton McInnis, medical director for Baptist Mission Center Clinic, gives medication to patient Jaclyn Leathers in July. Leathers and her mother, Bonnie Mize (back, center), are both uninsured patients. The Oklahoma City clinic serves the uninsured population of the Stockyard City area.


OKLAHOMA CITY — The Supreme Court may have declared that the government can order Americans to get health insurance, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to sign up.

Nowhere is that more evident than Oklahoma, a conservative state with an independent streak and a disdain for the strong arm of government. The state cannot even get residents to comply with car insurance laws; roughly a quarter of the drivers here lack it, one of the highest rates in the country.


When it comes to health insurance, the effort to sign people up isn’t likely to get much help from the state. Antipathy toward President Obama’s signature health-care overhaul runs so deep that when the federal government awarded Oklahoma a large grant to plan for the new law, the governor turned away the money — all $54 million of it.

The idea that the federal government will persuade reluctant people here to get insurance elicited head-shaking chuckles at Cattlemen’s Steakhouse, an iconic old restaurant in the Stockyards City neighborhood, which is lined with street banners reading “Where the Wild West still lives.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/health-insurance-mandate-faces-huge-resistance-in-oklahoma/2012/07/29/gJQAeji0IX_story.html?hpid=z2

[marlakay]

1. Fox has told them its bad and will cost

A lot of money that we the people have tp pay...of course they don't mention that if you make little it will cost less or be free.

[IndyJones]

7. Bingo!! Why do people not research for themselves rather than allowing Fox News to spoon feed

them garbage?

[Fumesucker]

2. Disdain for the strong arm of the government?

You can get 2 years to life in prison for growing a few pot plants in Oklahoma.

http://www.legaljoint.net/state_by_state/Oklahoma.asp?p=Oklahoma&state=42&mmj=2

Oklahomans love them some strong armed government as long as it's aimed at someone they don't like, such as hippies.

[tularetom]

3. If there's anywhere they need health insurance it's Oklahoma

My parents are both buried there and we visit occasionally. Everybody smokes and there are more obese people than I see anywhere else.

It isn't a wealthy area and there appear to be a lot of unhealthy people. It's OK to hate the government I guess but why let yourself die instead of getting the help you need?

[RKP5637]

4. OK will be where people go to die. n/t

[madrchsod]

5. Oklahoma gets back 1.36 for every dollar they send to the federal government

my state receives 75cts

[JoePhilly]

6. Sounds like they need lots of mental health care coverage.

[NNN0LHI]

8. All the Republicans I know would let their own children die from lack of health care

If doing that helped get the black fellow out of the White House.

Yes, this is true.

Don

[BlueCheese]

9. The mandate also faced huge resistance from Candidate Obama in 2008.

[spanone]

13. he got what he could with the opposition....don't you think

[UnrepentantLiberal]

10. They're hicks.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. Oklahoma is also Number One in Female Convicts.

USA! USA! USA!

[Brigid]

12. These are the same people . . .

Who hung onto Prohibition until 1959.

[KatyaR]

15. Hey, Oklahoma didn't get liquor by the drink until the mid 80s!

We still can't buy strong liquor or wine in grocery stores or on Sundays. We've been trying for years to get that changed, but it gets voted down every time. The megachurches and Baptists are very strong here....

[B Calm]

14. For Christ sakes, it's Oklahoma!

What did you expect?