Chris Gray

Nurses Association Supports Drive to Amend Constitution

Red-shirted citizen activists of Health Care for All Oregon packed the hearing room in a special evening meeting of the House Health Committee to lend support to Rep. Mitch Greenlick’s ballot push to declare healthcare a fundamental right for Oregonians.

As she testified Wednesday night, Carolanne Fry said it should’ve been her mother’s 53rd birthday. Instead, it was the third anniversary of her funeral, her life cut short of cancer, a condition she only learned of a few months before her death.

By: 
Chris Gray

Oregon State Hospital Wants Patients to Keep Medicaid Insurance

Currently, people lose their Oregon Health Plan coverage when they enter the state mental hospital and must wait to have their insurance reinstated upon discharge. A change in law could provide a boost to CCOs, since they can’t be billed for care received in the state hospital.

Oregon State Hospital officials have a new strategy for ensuring patients do not have to worry about their health insurance when they leave -- never cutting off their Medicaid coverage in the first place.

By: 
Chris Gray

Ashland Republican Takes Role in Healthcare Arena

Sen. Alan DeBoer will be a new face on two key committees as the Legislature convenes this month. In an interview with The Lund Report, he added his support to programs for children with disabilities, which face cuts.

The Oregon State Capitol will have a new face for the 2018 session in its health policy circles, as Ashland Republican Sen. Alan DeBoer steps into the void on two key committees.

By: 
Chris Gray

Bipartisan Support For Drug Transparency Bill Raises Hopes of Passage

image of prescription drugs
A scaled back version of a 2017 bill that sought to cap drug costs will instead follow a route successful in California, requiring drug manufacturers to explain big price increases

Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland, has found bipartisan, bicameral support for legislation to improve the price transparency for pharmaceuticals, giving momentum to passage that eluded advocates last year.

By: 
Chris Gray

Consumers Unlikely to Notice Federal Insurance Tax Relief

The repeal of the individual mandate is expected to sabotage the market and cause rates to climb higher than any reduction from the repeal of the health insurance provider fee for 2019.

The deal to reopen the federal government last week included a suspension of a national health insurance premium tax, but the quashing of the individual mandate in the Republicans’ massive tax cut last month will likely jack up 2019 premiums by a higher percentage than what consumers will save fr

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Chris Gray

Voters Give Whopping Support to Medicaid. Next Referral? Healthcare as Human Right

Rep. Mitch Greenlick said Tuesday’s 62-38 vote in support of Measure 101 gives momentum to his November ballot measure, declaring healthcare a right to all Oregonians. Opponents of Measure 101 say the outsize money spent against them explains the lack of support for campaign finance reform.

House Democrat Mitch Greenlick of Portland did not mince words in his response to the 62-38 passage of Measure 101, which will keep the Or

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Chris Gray

Physician and Insurer Negotiations Over Uncontracted Providers Fail

Starting March 1, uncontracted providers will no longer be able to bill consumers if they believe the insurer has not properly compensated with them. But without a formal agreement on payment levels, physicians may find themselves at the mercy of insurers

Physicians and health insurers met for several months last year to find an agreement on billing for providers without contract, but failed to reach an agreement, just as they had failed in the 2017 session with House Bil

By: 
Chris Gray
Turnout has dragged in the Portland metro area, with only 24 percent of the ballots in the tri-county area returned. Eastern Oregon has turnout as high as 36 percent in some counties, but only a fraction of the total voters.

The flood of money that rushed into the campaign account set up to pass a series of taxes to fund the Oregon Health Plan has continued to pour in as ballots have been mailed out. The Yes for Healthcare political action committee has reported an additional $888,000 raised since Jan.

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Greenlick Renews Call for Transparency and Accountability for State CCOs

House Speaker Tina Kotek is confident that some of the key changes that she and Rep. Mitch Greenlick want for the state Medicaid system will pass in February, despite their defeat in 2017.

Representative Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, and House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, are reintroducing legislation that will provide greater daylight and accountability in the state’s Medicaid system, opening up their b

By: 
Chris Gray

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