Stipe Hunting
‘Stipe Hunting’ has replaced ‘snipe hunting’ as Oklahoma’s favorite imaginary pastime.
Only with ‘Stipe Hunting’ more often than not the prey of the hunt is real, very real and it is none other than former Oklahoma Senator and convicted felon Gene Stipe.
The latest outbreak of ‘Stipe Hunting’ resulted from a report in The Oklahoman on August 14th revealing that Health Care Financial Services Revenue Management Inc., a company supposedly owned by Gene Stipe, had collected more than $800,000 over six years from McAlester Regional Health Center. The health center’s governing board is chaired by none other than Stipe’s brother Francis.
The Stipe owned company worked with discharged patients to determine whether they were eligible for public assistance such as Medicaid, which of course is taxpayer dollars. Surprisingly what many might consider a sweetheart deal involving taxpayer money isn’t illegal however.
According to the referenced report, No policy or law prohibited the brother of the hospital board chairman from doing business with the hospital. But as one local surgeon put it, the connection didn’t pass the “sniff test”.
In the opinion of this writer, such a deal stunk to high Heaven, but that’s just my opinion. Yours may vary. In any case, this is one of those rare cases where we might be asking if there not ought be a law?
