South Central Declarations
“My constituents have made it clear. They want the uninsured vehicles off of the road.”
– Oklahoma State Rep. Steve Martin (R-Nowata, Washington, and Osage Counties). Martin is sponsoring House Bill 2525, which would allow a traffic stop to be justified if a law enforcement officer has reason to believe the vehicle is uninsured. The law currently requires “probable cause” for a traffic stop. Oklahoma has an online instant verification system that can alert law enforcement officers as to whether or not vehicles are in compliance with the insurance requirement.
“We’ve had three businesses that had claims totaling $250,000 in the past year. One church got hit twice in one month.”
– Ben Patterson of the Ron Patterson Insurance Agency in Richardson, Texas, refers to the continuing pattern of thieves targeting commercial air conditioning units in order to rip out the copper tubing. Patterson said businesses that have been vandalized repeatedly risk higher deductibles, higher insurance rates and becoming non-renewed. Thieves can obtain about 40 pounds of copper coil out of every commercial A/C unit, which could net them approximately $50 to $100 from a scrap metal dealer. But the destruction to the A/C unit, roof and walls of businesses can be tens of thousands of dollars.
“These settlement funds are just the tip of the iceberg. … We will continue to fight to recover our taxpayer dollars until every cent is accounted for.”
– Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell announced that his office has recovered $25.2 million from five pharmaceutical companies that he sued alleging unlawful inflation of drug costs paid by Louisiana taxpayers through the Medicaid program. The companies – Actavis, Boehringer Ingelheim, Dey, GlaxoSmithKline and Schering-Plough – have agreed to the payment for misreporting drug price information in order to improperly increase reimbursements paid by Louisiana’s Medicaid program, the AG’s office reported. Over the last four years, the Louisiana AG’s office has recovered a total of $138 million for the Medicaid Program.