Oklahoma chooses vendors for $2 billion program partially privatizing Medicaid

State officials announced the winners of up to $2.1 billion in health care contracts on Friday, a major milestone in implementing Oklahoma’s hotly debated privatized Medicaid program.

Four private health insurance companies will handle much of Oklahoma’s Medicaid program starting in October: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma; Humana Healthy Horizons; Oklahoma Complete Health, which is a subsidiary of managed care giant Centene; and United Healthcare.

Gov. Kevin Stitt has made partially privatizing Medicaid one of his administration’s top priorities. Using a policy called the managed care model, Oklahoma will begin paying private health insurance companies to coordinate much of the state’s Medicaid program, known as SoonerCare. Up to 75 percent of the state’s Medicaid enrollees will work with the private companies. That includes the anticipated 200,000 working adults who will newly qualify for Medicaid after voters passed expansion last year.

Oklahoma has some of the worst health outcomes in the country, Stitt said during a news conference at the state Capitol on Friday. The state’s current approach to health isn’t working, he said, and it’s time to try something new.

Read more: https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/oklahoma-chooses-vendors-for-2-billion-program-partially-privatizing-medicaid/