SALEM —
A billboard at 12th and Union streets here greets lawmakers with a challenge:
“Health care profits and insurance premiums are soaring. We’re
ALL paying the price. Legislators, what are you going to do about it?”
On Feb. 7, five state senators gave their answer, introducing a five-pack
of bills that they say would rein in health care cost increases by confronting
price-gouging by hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
• Senate Bill 501, the Insurance Industry Accountability Act,
would require insurance companies to justify rate increases — in public
hearings before a governor-appointed Health Insurance Rate Review Board.
In addition, the companies would have to issue an annual financial report.
Backers say the bill would give consumers a voice in setting insurance rates,
and would help consumers better understand what’s driving insurance
rate increases.
• Senate Bill 502, the Hospital Fair Pricing Act, would regulate
the rates hospitals charge, along the lines of a similar system in Maryland.
• Senate Bill 503 would require hospitals to get state approval before
expanding health services, constructing or remodeling new facilities, or
relocating. Critics say unnecessary duplication and unrestrained expansion
of facilities are driving up the prices hospitals charge.
• Senate Bill 504 would make hospitals fulfill their supposed charter
as “charitable institutions” by requiring them to provide treatment
free of charge to uninsured patients earning less than twice the federal
poverty level, and reduced-cost treatment for those earning between two
and four times the poverty level.
• Senate Bill 505 would open up Oregon’s fledgling drug bulk
purchasing pool to group health insurance policyholders; employees of state
and local governments and Oregon Health and Science University; state agencies
that purchase prescription drugs; and individuals over 54 years old who
don’t have prescription drug coverage and earn less than 185 percent
of poverty level.
The five proposals were developed last summer at a summit organized by the
labor-backed health policy group Oregonians for Health Security and have
the endorsement of the Oregon AFL-CIO and other union groups.
Health care costs are now the leading cause of strikes and labor disputes,
and unions are having to trade away pay raises to deal with the cost of
maintaining benefits.
In the Senate, the bills are co-sponsored by Democrats Kate Brown, Bill
Morrisette, Alan Bates, Peter Courtney and Laurie Monnes-Anderson, and Republican
Ben Westlund.
“This isn’t necessarily a magic bullet, but it’s a starting
point,” said Senator Monnes-Anderson. “Oregonians consistently
tell me we have to do something about rising health care costs.”
Each of the five bills has a counterpart bill in the Oregon House, though
as of press time, they had not yet been issued bill numbers.
In the Senate, the bills will be debated first in the five-person Senate
Health Policy Committee. Three of the committee’s five members are
co-sponsors, including the chair — Monnes-Anderson — so passage
there is considered likely. The bigger challenge, backers say, will be winning
passage in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Hospitals,
insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers are expected to fight
the bills.
“The hospital association is on a full- court press to absolutely
crush this stuff,” said Lynn-Marie Crider, a health policy expert
working for Service Employees Local 49, which represents health care workers.
But that’s not out of the question, says Maribeth Healey, executive
director of Oregonians for Health Security.
“There’s not one elected official in Oregon who did not hear
about health care from their constituents last year,” Healey said.
Union leaders and their health care allies are planning to turn out Friday,
March 18, for a rally organized as part of a national Health Care Action
Day. The event will take place at noon in downtown Portland’s Terry
Schrunk Plaza across from the federal building.
