Healthy Oregon Act designed to give health coverage to all Oregonians
Health Fund Board appointed by Governor Kulongoski meets for first time in Wilsonville on Tuesday at 1 p.m., Governor will come speak to them
Healthy Oregon Act designed to give health coverage to
all Oregonians
Health Fund Board appointed by Governor Kulongoski meets for first time in
Wilsonville on Tuesday at 1 p.m., Governor will come speak to them
By Bob Schoenberg
The Regal Courier, Oct 1, 2007, Updated Oct 1, 2007
Sen. Ben Westlund, at a presentation hosted by House District 35 Representative
Larry Galizio in King City Sept. 26, talked about what he hopes the “roadmap”
for health care reform in Oregon is going to be like when the 2009 State
Assembly meets and votes on a near universal Oregon health care package.
Westlund mirroring the concerns of others in Oregon about the costs of health
care, like Sen. Ron Wyden and former governor of Oregon John Kitzhaber, said
that the expense of providing health care is leading Oregon into a health care
crisis.
The State Senator from Bend said that he and others have looked at the current
status of prices for health care, and that, although it is way too high, people
in Oregon, so far, are paying the price.
“But more than that . . . this will not be sustainable. I don’t care what health
care you’ve got, or think you have, or maybe you don’t have any . . . but
whatever health care you’ve got, we can’t continue to pay for it at the rates
and the costs that are currently being charged. This is a crisis of enormous
economic proportion.”
He said that not only are Americans paying twice as much for health care
services than other industrialized countries such as Sweden, France, England or
Canada, Americans are getting the worst outcome of that service.
“Yet we have access, as Americans, without question, to the best doctors, the
best hospitals and the best medical technology in the world. Something is wrong,
something is desperately wrong. And it is getting worse.”
During the 2007 session of the State Assembly, to address the coming crisis in
health care costs, Westlund explained that the State Legislature passed the
Healthy Oregon Act to address this crisis.
On Tuesday afternoon starting at 1 p.m., the Health Fund Board named by Governor
Kulongoski this past August will meet for the first time to start planning what
Westlund called the “blueprint” for providing Oregonians with a health care plan
that includes everyone in the state while promising to reduce costs.
He said one of the things gone wrong in American health care is that the system
does not make preventative care the number one priority.
He said that Americans already have universal health care. That anyone who is
sick enough can go to any emergency room at a hospital and they will get top of
the line care.
But that it does not do as much good for those who are uninsured using the
emergency room as a last resort, by that time they have taken too long to get
proper health care.
“We get to the illnesses late in the disease cycle,” said Westlund, “when they
are much more costly to treat and the outcome is nowhere as good as in other
industrialized counterparts. The single biggest cost to health care is (for)
those that don’t have it.”
He explained that it is those that have health care insurance that are paying
the extra price for those emergency room visits, and that by reducing visits of
that type by insuring everyone and practicing preventative health care, it will
reduce the costs for everyone.
Another example of how the health care system spends more than necessary,
Westlund said, is duplication of services that are not necessary to provide
complete health care to a region.
In Bend, he told the audience of about 25 at the King City Civic Association
Town Hall, there are seven MRI machines.
“That’s nuts . . . Who is paying for all that? All of us,” he answered.
He said the overall system we have built in America for providing health care
gives private hospitals and clinics the incentives for building more and more
duplicated services like MRI imaging machines.
“We have the wrong incentives and incentive utilization. What we don’t have is
the incentives for wellness.”
He said getting the right incentives in the proper place is what every other
countries in the industrialized world does.
Westlund hopes that a proposal to address the problem of too much expensive
equipment would take the form of a certificate of need program.
In this program, a committee would look at a communities medical needs first and
determine if a capitol expansion at a hospital or a surgery center is necessary
for the region, or if it is just duplicating what is already available.
“We just can’t afford a for profit driven industry to willy nilly place their
stores on every street corner,” Westlund said. “We are not trying to deny
coverage, we are trying to effectively deliver it. There are so many common
sense cost reductions that can be built into the delivery system.”
Stemming rising costs in Oregon
Westlund said Oregon can providing health
care for everyone and it would still lower costs for those that pay for their
insurance right now. He said that those people who are not insured pay into
their share of a plan what they can afford. He described it as mandatory, like
car insurance.
He said that another way to reduce costs of insurance premiums in Oregon, we
need to be practicing preventative medicine, treating people to keep them from
getting sick in the first place. But that would take a different attitude about
doctors, he said.
Westlund explained that 70 percent of physicians in America are sub-specialists,
like a heart surgeon. He has no complaint with having excellent heart surgeons
in the health care system.
But having more specialists than general preventative doctors is opposite from
what the other countries have where 70 percent of their physicians are primary
preventative care doctors.
Changes needed in the federal system
Westlund said that in Oregon there is an
“egregious injustice going on in Oregon.”
He pointed out that new residents to Oregon may have Medicare and Medicaid, and
that all the paperwork is in order, but the new resident can’t find a physician.
He explained that no one is willing take on a new client under those plans here
because Oregon has the lowest reimbursement rate in the nation.
“The physicians can’t afford to see Medicare patients,” he said.
But, he said, a top down federal solution would not be as good as a solution as
one that can be crafted right here at home in Oregon.
“Here is what (SB)329 calls for. It is a very comprehensive look to get us to a
more cost effective, affordable health care delivery system where everybody is
covered and we lower costs. All medical costs in Oregon comes to about $20
billion a year and to reduce that amount several things have to occur, one is
adjusting the federal plans, Medicare and Medicaid so that doctors don’t go
broke treating patients on these plans and another is to offer coverage to
everyone, and everyone pays into the coverage. What it takes is the political
will and courage to make the hard decisions in doing the right thing, not for
the hospitals, not for the insurance companies, but for Oregonians.”
The Oregon Health Fund Board is meeting for the first time Tuesday Oct. 2
starting at 1 p.m. at Clackamas Community College Wilsonville Campus, room 111.
The campus is at 29353 Town Center Loop, Wilsonville.
On the Oregon Health Fund Board appointed by Gov. Kulongoski are:
Jonathan Ater, attorney. Ater is the current Vice-chair of the Oregon Health
Policy Commission and served on the Governor’s Mental Health Task Force in 2004.
Bill Thorndike, owner of Medford Fabrication. Thorndike served as past Trustee
for the Rogue Valley Medical Center Foundation and Treasurer of Asante Health
System.
Eileen Brady, co-owner News Season Market, board chair Celilo Group Media. New
Seasons received the Governor’s Gold Award in 2004 and Brady has been a leader
in developing sustainable food and farming systems.
Ray Miao, retired. Miao is the President of the Oregon Chapter of the American
Association of Retired Persons and is a Deschutes County Library board member.
Marcus Mundy, president, Urban League of Portland. Mundy is a board member of
the African American Health Coalition and former vice-president at Kaiser
Permanente.
Charles Hoffman, physician, Baker City. Hoffman also serves as a clinical
assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at Oregon Health Sciences University
and is a former Mayor of Baker City.
Gov. Kulongoski is planning to meet with the board at 3 p.m.
