April 2007

Co-chairs shore up Healthy Kids

Sen. Kurt Schrader (D–Canby) and Rep. Mary Nolan (D–Portland) aren’t the most popular legislators at the capitol these days. As co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, the two authored a proposed budget that has some lawmakers and advocates for human services up in arms.

“Our co-chairs are smart people, but they don’t understand the gravity of the situation,” said Sen. Avel Gordly (I–Portland). “It (mental health funding) is totally inadequate and disappointing.”

The co-chairs’ most noticeable difference with the governor’s proposed budget involves how to spend the estimated $180 million that would be generated from a proposed 84.5-cent tobacco tax increase.

Profits drop for major insurers

t insurers saw a slight decline in net income from 2005 to 2006, falling from 4.5 percent to 4.0 percent. It marks the first fall in profit in three years and is a drastic change from two years ago when insurers ramped up earnings from 1 percent to 4 percent. The latest numbers are from annual statements filed publicly with the Oregon Insurance Division.

“Some of the competitive dynamics of the market are taking hold,” said Joel Ario, administrator of the insurance division. “We are seeing only moderate rate increase, and in some cases decreases.”

Kitzhaber parts ways with Bates and Westlund over Medicare

There’s been a schism between former Gov. John Kitzhaber’s Archimedes Movement and the Oregon Better Health Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Alan Bates (D–Ashland) and Sen. Ben Westlund (D–Tumalo). The issue comes down to challenging Medicare.

The latest version of Bates and Westlund’s Senate Bill 329 incorporates much of the language from Kitzhaber’s Senate Bill 27, except for a provision that would open a discussion about accessing Medicare dollars. Because challenging Medicare is a pillar of Kitzhaber’s plan, he’s decided to press ahead with SB 27 on his own, despite earlier reports the bills would merge.

Provider tax gains support

The state’s hospitals and managed care plans support extending a provider tax set to expire at the end of the year – despite what they claim has been a lack of investment from the state. The tax is currently the sole funding source for Oregon Health Plan Standard. As of April its enrollment had dropped to fewer than 20,000 people.

The two most comprehensive pieces of legislation that address the provider tax, House Bills 2177 and 2183, simply extend what’s already in place: a 0.82 and 5.8 percent tax on the state’s hospitals and managed care plans, respectively, through the 2007-09 biennium. Three other bills, House Bills 3057, 3058 and 3059, look at other funding mechanisms, including raising the hospital tax to 5.5 percent and taxing other providers, such as ambulatory surgical centers, chiropractors and dentists.

Co-chairs, governor neglect mental health

Several lawmakers are openly voicing their dissatisfaction at the lack of money that both the governor and the co-chairs want to spend on community mental health services. Those programs are largely viewed as the most crucial tools in keeping people with mental illness out of jail, out of hospitals and off the streets.

At the same time, the state is looking to spend more than $412 million on two new state hospitals that won’t open until 2011. But without beefed-up community services, those hospitals will still be overrun, causing an even higher reliance on the state hospitals, advocates say.

“We have a crisis in our communities right now,” said Lara Smith, lobbyist for the National Alliance of Mental Illness. “If they don’t invest in community mental health now, nothing will change.”

Also in this issue...

• State hospital site draws ire from mental health advocates
  
• Governor delays closure of EOTC
  
• Nurses disagree on ratio bill
  
• Transparency bill passes unanimously out of House
  

Want to read the entire stories? Click here to subscribe! Or call our office at (503) 226-7870 or email us at news@healthforum.org and we'd be happy to send you a complimentary copy of this month's issue.