Status of Health Care Reform
S.B. 329 Amendments & S.B. 27

At the beginning of the session, I described this session’s major health care reform proposals in my January 19th newsletter, “Oregon Health Care Reform Begins.” Since then two additional newsletters also have focused on health care--The Healthy Kids Program and Universal Access to Health Care.

To date, none of the health care reform bills have made it to either the House or Senate floors for a vote.

Senators Bates and Westlund and their Senate Special Committee on Health Care Reform have been working diligently to prepare amendments to their Senate Bill 329. Their bill is intended to be a workable strategy for developing statewide health care reform in time for the 2009 legislative session. The current version of S.B. 329 is contained in the “-2” (referred to as the “dash 2”) amendments. The proposed 329-2” amendments contain the following:
(A.) they set forth the principles for the “Oregon Better Health Act.”
(B.) They establish the Oregon Health Fund and its program goals; and
(C.) They create the Oregon Health Trust Board.

The proposed Board is the heart of S.B. 329-2 amendments. The Board is empowered to develop a plan for achieving the Act’s principles and the Fund’s program goals. In addition, the Board is given substantial power to develop universal, statewide access to health care and substantial responsibility over Oregon’s health care system authority and over all Oregon health-related programs and State Commissions. The Board is to create sub-committees and conduct public hearings to achieve the goal of designing a reformed health care delivery system for Oregon.

The Board is to deliver its recommendations by October 1, 2008, and may do so in the form of a bill drafting request directly to Legislative Council—the legislative office of attorneys who draft the bills that ultimately become Oregon law.

John Kitzhaber’s Archimedes Movement health care reform proposal was drafted into Senate Bill 27. In March, Senators Bates and Westlund and former Gov. Kitzhaber met and decided to merge SB 27 into SB 329. Therefore, many features of SB 27 are included in the proposed 329-2 amendments. I have been told a rift developed in that agreement when Sen. Bates and Sen. Westlund decided not to include in the SB 329-2 amendments one provision important to Gov. Kitzhaber. Section 4 of Senate Bill 27 includes a request that Oregon be allowed to utilize all of the Federal dollars spent on Oregonians by the federal government. That request included Medicare dollars, and would have empowered the Board to redirect Medicare dollars as it determined appropriate. Although vital to Governor Kitzhaber’s plan to reform current State and federal health care spending in Oregon, many believe such a provision would be a poison pill for the bill when AARP members and families for the developmentally disabled got wind that a proposed Board was going to request power to redirect their Medicare benefits.


Dennis Richardson