OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Looming decisions for Gov. Mary Fallin on how Oklahoma will respond to the sweeping federal health care law are prompting an energetic, behind-the-scenes lobbying effort by hospitals, insurance companies, business and industry groups, and other constituencies that will be affected by provisions of the law.
Fallin is expected to announce within the next week her position on whether the state will move ahead with setting up a state-based online health insurance marketplace, or exchange, required under the law. Oklahoma policymakers also must decide whether the state will expand its Medicaid eligibility to provide coverage to thousands of low-income, uninsured citizens.
Fallin has yet to stake out a position on either proposal and faces a delicate political balancing act in a state where Republicans have bitterly resisted the requirements of the new federal health care law. On the one hand, hospital officials and chamber groups are pushing for both a state-based exchange and an expansion of Medicaid. But both of those ideas are fiercely opposed by tea party and other grass-roots activists who have been fighting implementation of the law since its passage in 2010.
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