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The Register-Guard: It's time for lawmakers to reopen Oregon Health Plan
Economists tell us that those with the lowest incomes are first to suffer and last to recover from economic downturns. Clearly, that has been the experience in Oregon. When times were bad, Oregon’s most vulnerable children, families and seniors paid a huge price. The Oregon Health Plan and other health and human service programs were slashed and sometimes shelved. Times have changed. The May revenue forecast shows our economy has recovered, yet programs to help those with the lowest incomes have not.During the past three years we have seen thousands of Lane County residents who have been unable to access the vital health care services they need. Now, with the proposed state budget, there are still no plans to improve access to care or to restore vital programs that were uniquely constructed over the past 15 years.
Since July 2004, the Oregon Health Plan-Standard program has been closed to new enrollees. Prior to that over 100,000 Oregonians received vital health care services under this program. Now, fewer than 20,000 remain insured. Most of those 80,000 Oregonians who lost coverage remain uninsured. In Lane County, that has translated into an additional 3,000 people without health insurance. That number does not include the newly uninsured that could have qualified for the Oregon Health Plan but under the current restrictions remain uninsured. Since the program has been closed, countless qualified, low-income Oregonians have been turned away. Uninsured Oregonians are members of our communities. The cost of their care is still absorbed by all of us, and too frequently through the more expensive alternative of our Emergency Departments and intensive care units. Studies show that the cost shift for this uninsured care to insured families and businesses is substantial. The proposed budget does nothing to restore this program- people are still left struggling without health care and those of us with insurance are forced to bear the burden, through increased premiums, of uncompensated costs to our facilities and providers.
Health care is an economic boost to the state. For every million dollars Oregon invests, $3.1 million is generated in associated economic activity and 30 jobs are created. However when diabetic patients are unable to get proper medications for example, the cost of treating diabetic ketoacidosis in the emergency room has a negative economic impact on our economy. In addition, by failing to invest in health care for low-income Oregonians, we are turning away millions of dollars in federal matching funds.
To continue the economic prosperity Oregon is enjoying, we must help all Oregonians obtain the tools they need to succeed or the state’s financial recovery will be downwardly cyclic. It makes moral and fiscal sense to put resources toward helping our most vulnerable Oregonians access health care, and slow the cost shift to our vital business community at the same time. We must stop this silent tax to our health insurance premiums.
Without a commitment of state funding to re-open OHP-Standard and other vital DHS programs, countless Oregonians will continue to suffer needlessly. Oregon desperately needs champion legislators who are willing to stand up and support our health care infrastructure. There is a time for talking about a grand future and time for acting in the present. Now is a time for action. I encourage all Legislators to join those who support the OHP to not go home and leave thousands of Oregonians behind.
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