During an Election Day speech to the Tulsa Metro Chamber of Commerce, Fallin reported that she had recently spoken to new U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell and had used the opportunity to push for another one-year extension of the federal waiver that continues Insure Oklahoma.

Oklahoma voters created Insure Oklahoma in 2005 as a means of underwriting health insurance for the working poor. The program is funded with federal Medicaid funding, state tobacco tax revenue and contributions from employers and individuals.

The program has proven popular with small employers and has strong support from the business community, but “Obamacare” changes in federal policy threatened to cut off federal funding last December.

Fallin successfully pushed President Obama to give the federal funding a waiver through the end of this year, although many people formerly served by Insure Oklahoma were pushed into federal health insurance exchanged in the process.

Tuesday, Fallin said there’s reason to believe the feds might sign off on another one-year waiver at year’s end.

That’s good news, although it’s far from a solution to the state’s health-care needs. Insure Oklahoma has done a good job of providing insurance coverage for an important segment of the state’s uninsured population, but thousands of others remain without coverage.

The continuing high number of uninsured Oklahomans damages the state’s overall health, reduces potential productivity and leaves hospitals and other medical providers at financial risk.

We encourage Fallin to continue pushing for the preservation of Insure Oklahoma and to look for ways of expanding the program to cover more of the state’s uninsured population.