James Coburn
EDMOND — State Rep. Lewis Moore is busy writing legislation to make government be more fair and run more efficiently, he said.
One bill would clean up the Department of Central Services and bring it in line with federal law, he said.
“It’s out of balance now,” said Moore, R-Edmond.
DCS needs to process state contracts more efficiently, he said.
Another bill would eliminate a workers’ compensation requirement mandating a physician’s prescription before a patient can have a physical therapy appointment.
“If you have a work comp claim and you needed the care of a chiropractor — you just go to a chiropractor — you don’t need a prescription,” he said. “So we think we can save some time and money by not having to send the person to a physician who otherwise would be freed up to see other people.”
He’s also working on a bill related to the state’s Insurance Guarantee Fund. This fund provides a pool of money for insurance benefits if a carrier would fail. Moore said he is studying whether the solvent fund should grow by continuing to collect money or whether carriers should be allowed to contribute to the fund to withdraw money.
“Given the times we are in and the shakiness of the market condition, I would think we would want to be as solvent and more flush than what we require them to be,” he said.
Currently, a surcharge is placed on the policy holder of life insurance when another life insurance company goes out of business.
“I’m thinking, why should we do that when we have this guarantee fund?” Moore said. “The guarantee fund should hopefully be able to cover what they’ve said they needed to cover.”
He said it’s not right to ask people who have already paid through their premiums to pay again.
“It doesn’t seem fair to me,” he said.
Moore is also considering putting a sunset provision on laws funding agencies for reexamination and relevance to changing times.
He would also like to freeze property values on primary residential property. Moore said a lot of residents complain to him that their property taxes go up 5 percent every year.
“I’m not happy with 3 percent,” Moore said. “I think when it’s your personal primary residence that no matter what the economy is doing, you should know you have that protected.”
jcoburn@edmondsun.com | 341-2121, ext. 114
