Town Hall Focuses on Uninsured; Officials, Residents strive for solution to the lack of health care - Portland Skanner

Portland Skanner
03-12-2003
Nearly 500,000 Oregonians have no health insurance, and as the numbers
increase, so will the cost of health care and social services, warned those
attending a local town hall meeting this week.

As part of 'Cover the Uninsured Week,' elected officials, local residents
and health care workers gathered at Self-Enhancement Inc. to discuss
solutions to resolve the plight of the uninsured.

The 'week' - from Monday, March 10 through Sunday, March 16 - was sponsored
by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropic organization
dedicated to improving health care, in partnership with other national
organizations. The nationwide effort focused attention on the 41 million
Americans who have no health insurance.

Besides the town hall meeting on Monday, other Uninsured Week activities
included a panel discussion at OHSU led by former Gov. John Kitzhaber,
M.D., health care screenings at Pioneer Courthouse Square and a health care
open house at a clinic in Rockwood.

Two more events are planned on Friday. An interfaith breakfast from 7:30 to
9 a.m. will be held in the Holiday Inn at the Portland Conference Center.
From noon to 1 p.m. a discussion by small- and large-business owners and
labor leaders about the future of employer-provided health insurance will
be conducted during a City Club meeting in the Multnomah Athletic Club,
1849 S.W. Salmon St.

During the town hall meeting on Monday, speakers stressed the role that
health insurance plays in preventing even costlier problems to individuals
and society.

Two-thirds of those who are uninsured have a full-time worker in the
household, noted Mary Beth Healey, of Oregonians for Health Security.

'The statistics are sobering,' she added. 'The inability to pay for medical
care is the leading cause of bankruptcy.'

In the past two years, nearly 890,000 Oregon residents under 65 years of
age were uninsured for a month or longer, according to a Robert Wood
Johnson report cited by Healey. At least 75 percent of those were uninsured
for six months or longer.

The cost of providing health care is the largest portion of the state
budget, said Jean Thorne, director of the state Department of Human
Resources and the state's former Medicaid director. Thorne helped to
develop the Oregon Health Plan in 1994. The plan provides some coverage to
Oregonians who otherwise would have no access to health care.

Citing the hundreds of thousands of Oregon residents who, because of the
state budget shortfall, no longer have mental health coverage, prescription
drugs or outpatient care, Thorne said that the Oregon Health Plan itself is
threatened.

'Everyone points their finger at the consumer or the doctors or the
hospitals as being responsible for increasing health care costs, but we are
all going to have to make sacrifices for the public good,' Thorne said.

'We need to come together and figure out how to deal with these difficult
times.'

Fielding the most questions from the audience during the two-hour meeting,
was State Rep. Alan Bates, D-Ashland. Bates, a family physician who spent
most of his weekend working in a hospital emergency room prior to the town
hall meeting, said he treated a 'huge' number of people who were uninsured.

'Health care is a basic human right,' Bates said, to the applause of the
audience that filled the SEI auditorium. 'People are not falling through
the cracks, they're falling through the Grand Canyon.'

Denying people health insurance is denying them health care. Bates added.

Making sure that the Oregon Health Plan is more efficient has taken up much
of his time in the Legislature during the past several weeks, he said, and
how legislators solve the $250 million budget shortfall will be crucial to
the plan's survival, Bates said.

'Budget cuts and efficiencies won't solve the problem,' he added. 'If we
don't raise more revenue, the number of uninsured people will grow.'

For every $1 that the state puts up, the federal government matches it with
$2, he noted, but if the state doesn't have the money, the match isn't
there.

Part of the solution, said John Duke, of the Safetynet Coalition, a group
that works with community health care clinics, is to bring health care
agencies, local businesses, nonprofit organizations and the insurance
industry together to develop a plan.

'We're all in different groups working on the effort. We have a cacophony
of different visions,' Duke said. 'But we have no strong central leader, no
common vision.

'There are good ideas and 'other' ideas,' he added, 'and they're equal in
power. But there isn't anybody ready yet to step forward and take the
lead.'

Article copyright The Skanner.
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