Author Archives: Admin

Open enrollment for child-only coverage starts Friday

Open enrollment for child-only insurance coverage in Oklahoma begins June 1st and runs through July 31st.  During this time, children age 1-18 can enroll in child-only coverage without a qualifying event.
 
The lack of child-only policies was an unintended consequence of the federal Affordable Care Act passed in 2010.  It left about 4 percent of Oklahoma children with no options for insurance.

"This segment of the market is important, even though it’s small," said Insurance Commissioner John D. Doak.  "We have grandparents on Medicare who are raising a grandchild.  

"While they don’t need a family health insurance policy, they do need an individual policy for that child," Doak added.

State and industry officials worked together to restore the coverage.  The Insurance Department requested an emergency rule to enable insurance companies to offer child-only policies in Oklahoma.  After Gov. Mary Fallin signed it, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma and CommunityCare launched programs to provide coverage for children 1-18 years old.  The Oklahoma High Risk Pool voted to provide insurance for babies younger than one, if they aren’t covered by a family policy or Medicaid. 

How to Enroll
 
Child-Only Coverage for Ages 1-18
CommunityCare – www.ccok.com or call 918-594-5225
Blue Cross Blue Shield – www.bcbsok.com or call 866-303-2583
 
Child-Only Coverage for Newborns
Oklahoma High Risk Pool – www.bcbs.com/ohrp/ or call 877-885-3717
 
The regular open enrollment period is held each year from June 1st – July 31st. When open enrollment ends, special enrollment will only be available for children 31 days after they undergo a qualifying event.  If you have any questions, please contact the OID’s Consumer Assistance Division at (800) 522-0071.  The Oklahoma Insurance Department, an agency of the State of Oklahoma, is responsible for the education and protection of the insurance-buying public and for oversight of the insurance industry in the state. 

U.S. Postal Service expands all-star lineup

Staff Report

Responding to overwhelming demand following the recent announcement to honor Joe DiMaggio, Larry Doby, Oklahoma native Willie Stargell and Ted Williams collectively on a single sheet of 20 Forever stamps, the Postal Service today announced that it will issue sheets of 20 stamps honoring each player individually. Events will take place in Cooperstown and the cities where each one played.

“We’ve heard from Indians, Pirates, Red Sox and Yankees fans and we’re stepping up to the plate to immortalize their revered players individually,” said U.S. Postal Service Stamp Services Manager Stephen Kearney. “We have a limited quantity of individual player stamp sheets ready to fill all preorders now for shipment on July 21 — with these orders getting top priority,” he added. “It will be interesting to learn which of the four players sells the most individual sheets. Orders received for individual player stamp sheets will be accepted and honored through August 31, 2012, even if it requires additional printing.

Kearney noted that the individual player stamp sheets will be sold only in limited quantities beginning July 21 at select Post Offices in Boston, Cleveland, Cooperstown, New York and Pittsburgh. To ensure customers obtain all the individual player sheets and related philatelic products, he recommended ordering them between now and August 31.

Customers may preorder the stamps and collectible products today by visiting this link:  www.usps.com/play-ball, or by calling 1-800-STAMP24 (1-800-782-6724) or by mailing a check or money order to:

MLB PRE-ORDER OFFER
USPS STAMP FULFILLMENT SERVICES
8300 NE UNDERGROUND DRIVE #210
KANSAS CITY, MO  64144-0001
 
(For mail orders, customers should include an additional $1.25 for orders up to $50. or $1.75 for orders over $50.)

First-Day-of-Issue dedication ceremonies will take place in five cities: 

•  July 20, 10 a.m., Cooperstown, NY, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
The First-Day-of-Issue Major League Baseball All-Stars stamps dedication ceremony for the sheet of stamps featuring all four players is taking place at the Museum as part of opening day festivities for the four-day Hall of Fame Weekend celebration in Cooperstown. Available nationwide that day, the stamps can also be purchased at the Museum and at the Cooperstown Post Office.

•  July 21 in Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and New York
First-Day-of-Issue dedication ceremonies for each of the individual player stamp sheets are being planned to honor DiMaggio in New York; Doby in Cleveland; Stargell in Pittsburgh; and, Williams in Boston. Details on event locations will be announced at a later date.

The stamps were designed by artist-illustrator Kadir Nelson of Los Angeles and are based on historic photographs. Phil Jordan of Falls Church, VA, served as art director.

Joe DiMaggio (1914-1999) was admired for his skill and grace as a fielder and base runner. The Yankee Clipper is best known for his incredible 56-game hitting streak in 1941 — the season of “the Streak.” DiMaggio led the New York Yankees to 10 pennants and nine World Series titles.

Larry Doby (1923-2003) was the first African American to play in the American League, joining the Cleveland Indians shortly after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the National League. The seven-time All-Star excelled as a hitter and center fielder and set an American League outfielder record for 164 consecutive errorless games. 

Willie Stargell (1940-2001) powered the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates to a World Series title. Hitting 475 home runs during his career, the seven-time National League All-Star is famous for smashing baseballs out of stadiums. 

Ted Williams (1918-2002) of the Boston Red Sox served during World War II and the Korean War. The last Major League player to bat over .400 for a single season, in 1941, Williams won six American League batting titles and four home run titles. Despite the breaks in his career, Williams hit .344 over 19 years, including 521 home runs. 

Other 2012 Stamps
Customers may view the Major League Baseball Forever stamps as well as many of this year’s other stamps on Facebook at facebook.com/USPSStamps, through Twitter@USPSstamps or on the website Beyond the Perf at beyondtheperf.com/2012-preview. Beyond the Perf is the Postal Service’s online site for background on upcoming stamp subjects, first-day-of-issue events and other philatelic news.

The following stamps and philatelic products are available at this link:  www.usps.com/play-ball/

Sheets of 20 Stamps
         Major League Baseball All-Stars (Item # 469640), $9.
         Joe DiMaggio (Item # 577840), $9.
         Larry Doby (Item # 577940), $9.
         Willie Stargell (Item # 578040), $9.
         Ted Williams (Item #578140), $9.

Uncut Press Sheets  (14.5" W X 19" H – artwork suitable for framing)
Five different pristine, without perforations or die-cuts press sheets will be available: (6 stamp panes per sheet), $54:
         1,000 sheets featuring all four players (Item # 469684)
         2,500 sheets of each individual player:  
DiMaggio (Item # 577884); Doby (Item # 577984); Stargell (Item # 578084); Williams (Item # 578184)
 
Play Ball!  Great Moments in Major League Baseball® History 
         40-page softbound book with 16 stamps (including previously issued baseball stamps), $24.95 (Item # 469672)

Ceremony Program
         Random stamp featuring the Cooperstown, NY, First-Day-of-Issue postmark, $6.95 (Item # 469691)

First-Day-of-Issue Black Pictorial Postmarks and Digital Color Postmarks (DCP) will be available for Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York City and Cooperstown, NY. The following First Day of Issue covers are available:

First-Day Covers  (Black Pictorial Postmarks)
         Set of 4 covers with Cooperstown, NY  postmark  (July 20, 2012), $3.56 (Item # 469663)
         Set of 8; 4 covers with Cooperstown postmark / 4 covers from other cities, $7.12 (Item # 469669)
         Individual player covers with Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and New York postmark (July 21, 2012),  89-cents each:  DiMaggio (Item # 577861); Doby (Item # 577961); Stargell (Item # 578061);Williams (Item #578161)    
 
Digital Color Postmark First-Day Covers
         Set of 4 covers with Cooperstown, NY postmark  (July 20, 2012),  $6.40 (Item # 469668)
         Set of 8:  4 covers with Cooperstown postmark / 4 covers from other cities, $12.80  (Item # 469679) 
         Individual player covers with Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and New York postmark (July 21, 2012), $1.60 each:  DiMaggio (Item #577865); Doby (Item # 577965); Stargell (Item # 578065); Williams (Item #578165)   

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service was ranked number one in overall service performance, out of the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world, Oxford Strategic Consulting. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.  Follow the Postal Service on Twitter @USPS_PR and at Facebook.com/usps

What 56 years of tornado tracks across the U.S. looks like

Staff Report

John Nelson has used 56 years of data gathered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on tornadoes across the United States to create a spectacular image of storm paths by the F-scale with the brighter neon lines representing more violent storms. 

In the comments, some have mentioned they are surprised the paths of the tornadoes appear in straight lines. Nelson explains, based on the data, the vectors were created using touchdown points and liftoff points.

An apparent Oklahoma Weather hound — OKWeatherGirl — shares this information:   In response to the comment about the tornado paths all being linear the tornado lengths are correct. The data file that was used connects a straight line between the lat/long of the starting point to the lat/long of the ending point. Those are historically the only points that were stored for every known tornado. It was not until recent years that the usefulness and practicality of storing an approximate path was discovered. Remote sensing is also used to more accurately locate exact tornado paths in addition to the damage survey information and all of this data is easier to store and manage now using GIS(geographic information systems)than has been in the past.

As GeekOWire says, it may not be the most scientific of maps, but “it’s still a startling look these enormous storms.”

Click here for the original post. 

Click here for the enlarged photo.

Tip of the reporting hat to The Blaze, click here for their post.

Graphic with Tulsa’s approximate location by Tulsa Today.

House to examine plan for United Nations to regulate the Internet

Staff Report

House lawmakers will consider an international proposal next week to give the United Nations more control over the Internet.

The proposal is backed by China, Russia, Brazil, India and other UN members, and would give the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) more control over the governance of the Internet.

It’s an unpopular idea with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress, and officials with the Obama administration have also criticized it.

“We’re quite concerned,” Larry Strickling, the head of the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said in an interview with The Hill earlier this year.

He said the measure would expose the Internet to “top-down regulation where it’s really the governments that are at the table, but the rest of the stakeholders aren’t.”

At a hearing earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also criticized the proposal. He said China and Russia are "not exactly bastions of Internet freedom."

"Any place that bans certain terms from search should not be a leader in international Internet regulatory frameworks," he said, adding that he will keep a close eye on the process.

Yet the proposal could come up for a vote at a UN conference in Dubai in December.

Click here for more from The Hill.

Will Wasserman Schultz apologize For Collins remark?

Mike McCarville

The Oklahoma Republican Party released the following statement in response to Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s planned trip to Oklahoma. Wasserman Schultz will visit Tulsa on Saturday to raise money for the Barack Obama Victory Fund 2012.
 
“Wasserman Schultz’s visit couldn’t have come at a better time as I could use her help with something,” said Chairman Matt Pinnell. “Given the Chairwoman’s oft-repeated desire for ‘civility’ in politics, I hope she will use her visit to repudiate her own Oklahoma Democratic Party Chairman’s recent comparison of conservatives to Timothy McVeigh.”

Since being appointed to head the DNC by President Obama, Wasserman Schultz has made civility in politics one of her foremost issues. Wasserman Schultz was quoted this past January saying: “We need to make sure that we tone things down… the discourse in America, the discourse in Congress in particular … has really changed, and I’ll tell you. I hesitate to place blame, but I have noticed it take a very precipitous turn towards edginess and a lack of civility with the growth of the Tea Party movement. I’ve never seen a time that was more divisive or where discourse was less civil. What the Tea Party has done is they have taken it to a different level, and so when they come and disagree with you, you’re not just wrong, you’re the enemy.”
 
Just over a month ago, Oklahoma Democrat Party Chairman Wallace Collins told Fox News, “Is he (OKGOP Chairman Pinnell) forgetting the fact that the bombing was done by somebody of his bent – in other words a right-winger?  If Timothy McVeigh were alive today, he most likely would be a Tea Partier.”

The Oklahoma Republican Party called on Chairman Collins to apologize for his offensive remarks, but he refused. When called on to repudiate their party’s leader, the Democrat Leaders in the House and Senate – Scott Inman and Sean Burrage – were silent as they were preoccupied scaring Oklahoma taxpayers about the mass hysteria that would unfold if we cut taxes. To date, Chairman Collins and Oklahoma Democrat leaders still have not apologized for comparing their political opponents to the worst domestic terrorist in American history.
 
“We have given Oklahoma Democrats ample opportunity to apologize for the offensive remarks, yet they still refuse,” said Pinnell.

“You can’t speak of ‘civility’ and then have representatives of your party comparing political opponents to a deranged terrorist. I call on Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz to repudiate and reject Chairman Collins’ disgusting and inappropriate remarks. If the Chairwoman is truly as devoted to “civility” as her rhetoric suggests, I’ve no doubt she will join me in calling on the Chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party to apologize for these comments,” concluded Pinnell.