Director's Message

July 27, 2007

To: All DHS employees

From: Jim Edge, DHS Assistant Director for Medical Assistance Programs

“The health of nations is more important than the wealth of nations.”

--- Will Durant, historian

With Bruce Goldberg on a well-deserved vacation, it is my pleasure this week to update you on what is happening in Oregon health care. It’s been years since the news has been so encouraging. Consider:

• The Legislature authorized a panel to investigate how to move Oregon toward universal health care.
• In November, Oregon voters will decide the fate of the Governor’s Healthy Kids Plan, which would deliver health insurance to up to 117,000 uninsured children.
• And we are preparing to add more people to the Oregon Health Plan’s Standard benefit package for the first time since June 2004.

This is important because the Oregon Health Plan benefits so many vulnerable Oregonians, among them foster children, people with physical and mental disabilities, low-income elderly, people being treated for addictions, and those seeking self-sufficiency.

To lead the panel seeking ways to bring universal health care to Oregon, Governor Kulongoski has hired Barney Speight as executive director. Many will remember Barney serving as the DMAP administrator during most of the 2005 legislative session. He has extensive health-care experience in both the private and public sectors and knows how to get things done.

After debating the Governor’s Healthy Kids Plan, meanwhile, state lawmakers elected to ask voters to decide whether to raise the state’s cigarette tax by 84 cents a pack, bringing it in line with Washington state’s. It would support a health-insurance package for up to 117,000 uninsured children.

If voters approve Measure 50, children would receive full coverage under the Oregon Health Plan if they live in households earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($41,300 for a family of 4), while the asset limit would be eliminated and the required uninsured period shortened.  In households earning from 201 percent to 300 percent of the poverty level, insurance premiums would be subsidized; above 300 percent of the poverty level, or $61,950 for a family of 4, any household could buy affordable children’s health insurance from a pool.

If voters approve the tobacco-tax increase, money also would be available to expand enrollment in the Health Plan’s Standard benefit package by up to 10,000 people, subject to legislative approval.

Regardless of what voters decide, we are making plans to open the Standard benefit package, which enrolled more than 100,000 people as recently as 2003. We can accept new enrollees because the Standard plan, which is financially sustainable at 24,000 people, is below 20,000.

Assuming federal approval (the federal government contributes 60 cents of every dollar spent by Medicaid), we will do this through implementation of a reservation system. As we have space, people who put their names on the reservation list will receive an application.

America has some of the highest-priced health care among the world’s industrialized nations, without outcomes to match. Presidential candidates, responding to voter unhappiness with a broken system, are talking about health care more than ever before. We, too, are concerned about improving quality and outcomes in our health care system – and hope to build those concepts into future changes.

In more states, access to insured health care is being expanded. I believe we should be encouraged that Oregon, long an innovator, may be preparing to recapture its reputation as a health-care leader.

To provide feedback email: DHS.Directorsoffice@state.or.us

This message is intended for all department employees. Please read it electronically, if possible. Managers and supervisors are asked to share the message each week with employees who do not have email access.