Town hall meetings set on health-care reform
Two state senators will be in the area today and Saturday to talk about the proposed Oregon Health Trust bill

By Bill kettler
March 23, 2007

Two state senators who want to provide universal health care for Oregonians will visit the Rogue Valley this weekend to talk about their proposal.

Sens. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, and Ben Westlund, D-Bend, say Oregon can provide health insurance for some 600,000 uninsured citizens by pooling the money that's already being spent on health care and making the system run more efficiently.

Bates likened the existing system to "two guys in a boat rowing in opposite directions and we're not getting anywhere."

He said too many people who lack health insurance go to hospital emergency rooms for medical care, which drives up the cost of health care for everyone else through higher health insurance premiums.

"If we don't devise a system to control health care costs, we won't have health care."

Bates and Westlund will visit Grants Pass and Ashland on Friday and Medford on Saturday to talk about Senate Bill 329, which would establish a new Oregon Health Trust. The trust would oversee health care within Oregon to help control costs and provide all Oregonians with basic health care benefits.

Trust officials would define the basic benefit package, but additional benefits could be purchased directly from insurance companies. Employers who already provide health insurance for employees would have the option of continuing that coverage.

The proposal calls for no new taxes. Money that workers and their employers now spend on health insurance would be pooled in a new Oregon Health Fund, along with state money and matching federal dollars that now pay for health care for low-income Oregonians.

The Health Trust board would set reimbursement rates for physicians and other health care providers, and work out the details of how the plan would actually operate. After the trust board designed the plan, the Legislature would have to approve a measure to establish the funding plan.

The meetings in the Rogue Valley are part of a 17-stop statewide tour Bates and Westlund scheduled during March to talk with Oregonians about what shape comprehensive health care reform should take.

Health care is a hot topic in the Legislature this session. Physicians, patients, employers, insurers and others connected with the medical system have called for fundamentally restructuring a system that's beset by rising costs and growing numbers of people who can't afford even the most basic health insurance.

Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon, for example, is "absolutely committed" to changing how health care is delivered, said Mike Becker, Regence's director of legislative and regulatory affairs. Becker said any fundamental restructuring of health care will also have to include incentives for people to take more responsibility for their own care.

The Oregon Medical Association favors a system that provides universal care, said spokeswoman Paige Webster, "and there needs to be an overhaul of the system."

Some Southern Oregon civic and business leaders already have signed on to the reform campaign, including Bill Williams, chief executive of Harry & David Holdings; and Russ Batzer of Batzer Construction. In a meeting with the Mail Tribune, they said businesses of all sizes recognize the need for change.

Batzer said his company spends more than $500,000 annually to provide health insurance for its 100 employees, but many second- and third-tier contractors cannot afford health benefits for their workers.

Williams said Harry & David spends about $18 million annually on health insurance for employees, equal to 3 percent of the company's sales.

"Companies can't continue to do it by themselves," Williams said. "It's too expensive."

Besides SB 329, several other proposals to reorganize Oregon's health care system are in the Legislature this session. SB 27 was drafted by the Archimedes Movement, a health reform initiative led by former Gov. John Kitzhaber. HB 3368 was drafted by the Oregon Health Policy Commission.

The concepts in all three bills are quite similar, said Maribeth Healey, director of Oregonians for Health Security, a nonprofit organization that advocates for consumers. Healey said it was significant that three different groups worked independently to find a solution to the crisis in health care, but all three came up with a remarkably similar approach.

If the proposal moves smoothly, Oregonians could be issued health cards for the new system by 2009. Healey said the forces that have come together to support restructuring may actually be able to craft the next generation of health care.

"It is going to be a long process," she said, "but are we going to get something that takes us down this path? I think so."

Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492 or e-mail:bkettler@mailtribune.com