The Chamber will further encourage state investment in support of the biosciences industry and associated clusters.
high administrative burden for health care businesses and shift the increased burden of uncompensated care to employers and health care providers.
CHILD CARE The Chamber supports targeted policies designed to increase availability of non-mandated, high-quality childcare and out of school time options to help generate increased workforce development. WELLNESS INITIATIVES The Chamber supports the following state and local initiatives, including wellness, disease prevention and care programs, that serve to improve the physical, behavioral and mental health of Oklahoma citizens: tobacco prevention programs; efforts to mitigate the harmful health effects of e-cigarettes/vaping; public outreach initiatives; efforts to address health disparities; and workplace and school-based wellness initiatives, including health education and healthy eating programs. PREVENTION OF DISEASE The Chamber recognizes the detrimental impact of chronic and communicable diseases (including substance use disorder) on the quality of life for Oklahoma’s residents and the severe economic costs they impose on health care providers and employers. Therefore, the Chamber will support efforts by the state’s elected officials, medical research and public health
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT The Chamber supports efforts to foster a federal
policy environment that is conducive to further research and will oppose efforts to unreasonably restrict the continued development of national bioscience and research programs. FEDERAL FUNDING FOR RESEARCH AND HEALTH/ LIFE SCIENCE INFRASTRUCTURE The Chamber supports protecting and increasing funding for life science and health care infrastructure and programs including but not limited to: the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST).
This includes:
SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH PROGRAM The Chamber supports reauthorization of the Small Business Innovation Research Program to allow more effective commercialization of leading life sciences research. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY The Chamber supports looking at best practices on enactment of Intellectual Property protections to ensure the protection of the integrity of commercialized research as it is brought to market. NATIONAL SECURITY The Chamber believes protecting the advanced research and development and life-saving treatments produced by the U.S. life sciences industry is a key national security concern. We support, where possible, enacting appropriate protections as well as onshoring research and development functions to ensure hostile actors are not enabled to conduct corporate espionage on behalf of adversarial foreign governments. • Protecting the NIH/Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program which has been instrumental in building health research infrastructure in Oklahoma. • Ensuring that NIH continues to provide adequate funds for reimbursement of facilities and administration costs. • Enhance connectivity with industry to jointly apply for federal funds supporting healthcare and life science infrastructure and programmatic funding. • Related Farm Bill programs.
communities to develop avenues to successfully prevent and combat congenital, chronic, pandemic and communicable diseases.
Oklahoma should create a program and the support infrastructure to accelerate the movement of new drugs, diagnostics, and therapies. This would help reinforce the position of Oklahoma as a world class center for medical care and life sciences research. This would be modeled after the Cancer
Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), but with a broader concept encompassing diseases that affect Oklahomans.
CLEAN INDOOR AIR The Chamber supports legislation to make all indoor areas smoke free as well as legislation to remove smokers, on a non- medical basis, as a protected class in state employment law.
FEDERAL ISSUES
MEDICAID CUTS The Chamber opposes Medicaid cuts (enacted by
Congress under H.R. 1) that will place increased pressure on reimbursement rates, negatively impact the adequate delivery of critical services to the most vulnerable, exacerbate an already
REGULATORY REFORM The Chamber supports ensuring innovation and regulatory
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