March 26, 2021 Your legislative team is back in the thick of it as the legislature slogs through its second round of committee work. This last week we have asked committee chairs not to hear anti-vaccine measures and none of the remaining three are on agendas yet. Insurance companies have also worked to derail SB747, which prohibits insurers from changing coverage based upon vaccination status. HB2335, regarding vaccine mandates, is not on Monday’s Senate Health and Human Services agenda nor is SB658, which requires school districts to provide information about immunization exemptions, on the House Public Health agenda for Wednesday. We will continue to be vigilant. The co pay accumulator bills continue to move. HB2678 is scheduled to be heard Monday in committee. We got it moved from Retirement and Insurance to our author Sen. McCortney's committee. This way it will have the title on and go to the Senate floor ready to go to the governor if it passes there. Just in case, SB92 is on the House Insurance Committee agenda for Wednesday. The author may run it or may let it drop depending upon how the other bill is doing. On the managed care front, HB1091 has not been heard in committee yet but the deadline isn’t until April 8. The plaintiff in the injunction was required to give a response to the state’s answer by Friday. Now we will wait to see if the court will take jurisdiction and make a ruling. We worked all week against HB2504, which would give the state health department and the commissioner of health more control over the Oklahoma City County and Tulsa County health departments. The bill has yet to be heard in committee and a large coalition has formed against it. Telehealth payment parity for providers, SB674, awaits a committee hearing. A measure that would create a legislative committee to review agency rule changes throughout the year, SB913, passed committee this week. The OAFP doesn’t have a position on this bill at this time, but because it deals with rules, I wanted to make sure you were aware of it.

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