Capital update ... By State Rep. Randy Randleman

Oklahoma made significant strides in helping children with learning disabilities and processing delays this week with the signing of legislation to update the Oklahoma Dyslexia Handbook.

For the last two years, a task force established by the Legislature has been studying dyslexia. They developed a handbook with numerous recommendations for schools and teachers to help identify students with dyslexia and to provide best practices for ensuring they continue to learn on track.

However, that handbook will need to be updated as new research emerges.

I authored House Bill 2223 to assign the handbook to the State Department of Education so they can update it as needed.

The governor signed this bill into law earlier this week.

I plan to run future bills to have the handbook address dysgraphia and other processing delays. Dyslexia, dysgraphia and processing delays are all neurological disorders controlled by dopamine in the left side of the brain.

Research has indicated that one out of five students have trouble reading due to dyslexia. After testing thousands of students, I believe that the number of learning disabilities is even higher with dysgraphia.

There are so many interventions for these disorders. For example, since the left side of the brain cannot interpret color, a color overlay can be placed on the reading material to switch the information to the right side of the brain, reducing the distortions.

This is a possible solution if reading scores are low, but writing skills are high.

Another critical item this session is managed care. Senate Bill 131 would stop managed care from being managed outside our state.

In my career, I have worked with the Oklahoma Health Care Authority (OHCA) for more than 20 years. OHCA has successfully managed more than one million cases each year.

Adding 200,000 cases to handle Medicaid expansion, as approved by the majority of voters in June 2020, would not overwhelm OHCA. It would cost five percent for Oklahoma to manage this while we would pay 15 percent out-of-state to a managed care company and add another middle man to the problem.

Additionally, an out-of-state company means we would lose the taxes off of these services.

SB131 passed the House with Rep. McEntire and myself pushing for the program, but the Senate is refusing to hear it.

I believe it is wrong for a person to use their power to stop legislation, especially when the legislation affects the entire state.

There is an Anti-Managed Care Advocacy Day at the Capitol on May 11, starting at 9:30 a.m. Please attend if you are able to show your support of SB131 and keep health care in Oklahoma.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns you may have. You can reach me at (405) 557-7375 or randy.randleman@okhouse.gov. Thank you for the honor of serving you at the State Capitol. 

Rep. Randy Randleman represents District 15 in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, which includes portions of Haskell, LeFlore, McIntosh, Muskogee, Pittsburg and Sequoyah counties.