The HB 3260 Study Will Tell Us How to Provide Health Care for ALL Oregonians. Please Donate Now to Help Fund the Study.

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We need your donation to make the study happen because the legislature did not fund it. HB 3260 authorizes the Oregon Health Authority to contract a third party to study Oregon’s health care financing options.

The bill stipulates the ideal health care system will:

  • Provide universal access to comprehensive care at the appropriate time.

  • Allow choice of provider.

  • Reduce administrative costs.

  • Use sufficient, fair, and sustainable financing.

  • Ensure adequate compensation of providers.

  • Include physical, dental, vision, and mental health care.

  • Be affordable for individuals, families, businesses, and state and local governments.

The study will examine at least four options for financing health care:

  1. Implementation of the Affordable Care Act including private health insurance exchanges and the Oregon Integrated and Coordinated Health Care Delivery System (Health Care Transformation process).

  2. Implementation of the Affordable Care Act with the addition of a public option and including the basic health program of the Affordable Care Act.

  3. Publicly financed, privately delivered single payer health care, decoupled from employment.

  4. A plan selected by the OHA that makes available to every Oregonian essential health benefits, including preventive care and hospital services, using private insurance and privately delivered health care

Researchers must consider previous health care financing studies in Oregon and other states, the impact on Oregon’s Health Care Transformation process, and compliance with the Affordable Care Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and other relevant federal law.

The study must consider the impact of each option on individuals, businesses, the economy of the state including employment, and budget impacts to state and local governments.

The final report must include a recommendation for the option that best satisfies the criteria specified in the bill.

More Information

Oregon businesses should chip in for universal health care study. You Can too!

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One would have to live in a cave not to know that health care in America is changing.  Three key issues driving these changes are the need to reduce costs, improve health outcomes and cover more people.  As business owners, we believe these are important goals.  

Which prompts the question, will the Affordable Care Act take us where we need to go?  

When the ACA is fully operational, many more Oregonians will be covered, the exclusion for pre-existing conditions will have ended and many other benefits will accrue.

A Congressional Budget Office analysis, however, shows the ACA will reduce government spending but increase total spending. This means families and businesses will pay $130 billion more annually for health care than we do now.

In terms of health outcomes, the Massachusetts experience with a similar system shows no improvement in public health. In contrast, medical bankruptcies rose 30 percent and health care costs there are rising faster than any other region.

And the bottom line? The ACA will not cover everyone in Oregon. Many will still lack coverage.

So what’s the alternative?

More here.

If you are interested in helping to fund this important study, checks should be made out to “Northwest Health Foundation Fund II” and designated “HB 3260 Health Care Financing Study” and sent to:
 
Northwest Health Foundation
221 NW Second Ave, Suite 300
Portland, Oregon 97209

THANKS!