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Health Care Heavyweights Dole Out Contributions As Oregon’s Gubernatorial Race Heats Up

Hospital groups and labor unions are picking their favorites, but bigger campaign donations will flow closer to the May primary and the November election.
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State health officials are racing to win federal approval of Oregon Health Plan changes before Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, shown at the Oregon Convention Center vaccination site, leaves office. | KRISTYNA WENTZ-GRAFF/OPB
March 24, 2022

Heavyweights in Oregon’s health care industry — from hospital systems to labor unions — have begun pouring cash into Oregon’s gubernatorial race, with the looming May primary that will determine which Democrat and Republican will face off against independent Betsy Johnson in November.

The heavily contested Republican and Democratic primaries  — plus the unusual three-way contest in the general election — have put hospitals systems in a quandary about whom to back.

The hospitals’ chosen solution is to give money to three gubernatorial candidates: Johnson, Republican Christine Drazan, and Democrat Tobias Read.

Health care labor unions, meanwhile, have plunked their money on a sole Democrat: Tina Kotek.

The unions likely had no trouble figuring that Kotek, a longtime state legislator and most recently the Oregon House speaker, represents their interests best, said Jim Moore, an associate professor of politics at Pacific University in Forest Grove.

For hospital systems, the choice is trickier, he said.

“The hospitals are desperately looking for an old-fashioned country club Republican who understands economics and has a business sense,” he said. 

“They want another Vic Atiyeh,” Moore said, referring to the moderate Republican who was Oregon governor for 1979-87. Hospital executives aren’t sure which among the current crop of gubernatorial candidates comes closest to fitting that bill, he said.

More campaign contributions — from the health care industry and other sectors — remain on the horizon, as winners emerge in the primaries and head into the November election.

The race comes at a pivotal time for health care, as Oregon — and the rest of the globe — hopes the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic is over.

Democratic Gov. Kate Brown is not running for re-election, but her handling of COVID-19 – and the struggles hospitals faced in the pandemic – provides ample campaign fodder for Republican candidates.

The virus aside, the state is still grappling with many challenges.

It faces a health care workforce shortage, with providers struggling to recruit and keep nurses and other workers. The state this year will begin dropping as many as 300,000 people from the Oregon Health Plan because their incomes now exceed Medicaid caps.

And the state will continue to pursue its years-long efforts to curb the rise in health care and pharmaceutical costs, even as it launches a new program to scrutinize big health care industry mergers and acquisitions.

Johnson Is Wild Card

The big wild card in the election is Johnson. Just how many Democratic and GOP votes she’ll draw in November will likely prove pivotal, Moore said.

The Oregon Hospital Political Action Committee – an arm of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems industry group – is already writing big checks. 

The PAC has given $60,000 to Johnson, a former Democratic state senator who quit the party last year in order to run as an unaffiliated candidate. The group also gave $40,000 each to the campaigns of former House GOP Leader Drazan and State Treasurer Read, a Democrat.

“Through a member driven process, the OAHHS contributions demonstrate our support for the candidates we believe best reflect the values most important to Oregon’s hospitals,” said David Northfield, a spokesman for the hospital association, when asked about the group’s major issues are for the upcoming election season and its support for the candidates.

Johnson’s campaign couldn’t be reached for comment. Compared to the massive amounts of money business interests have funneled to her, the hospital association’s donation is relatively small. Johnson has accumulated a war chest that stands at $4.4 million, thanks to six-figure donations from Phil Knight, Timothy Boyle, and companies involved in construction, gravel mining, real estate development and the like.

By comparison, Drazan’s campaign has about $1 million in cash on hand.

Drazan’s campaign manager, Trey Rosser, pointed to Drazan’s work with the hospital association during the pandemic.

“Most recently, she worked with the association to support struggling rural hospitals when Governor Brown prevented access to routine care and elective surgeries,” Rosser said in a statement. “She cares deeply about reforming our state’s health systems to lower costs and better serve patients. The association’s contribution is yet another sign that Christine is the strongest Republican candidate in this year’s election.”

At points during the pandemic, the state directed hospitals to stop elective surgeries so staff could focus on treating successive waves of patients sick with COVID-19.

Drazan also received a $2,500 donation from The Doctors Company Oregon Political Action Committee. The political PAC is one of a handful across the United States affiliated with The Doctors Company, the nation’s largest physician-owned medical malpractice insurer. The PACs lobby to curb doctors’ medical liability.

Drazan is the only major GOP candidate to attract significant health care industry money. The other GOP candidates with large war chests -- Bud Pierce and Bob Tiernan – are largely self-funded.

All the candidates – Johnson, Republicans and Democrats – are relatively unknown around the state and face heavy lifting to raise their profiles, Moore said.

A Two-Way Democratic Contest

On the Democratic side, the contest is largely between Kotek and Read.

In December, the Oregon Nurses Association political action committee donated $50,000 to Kotek’s campaign, with SEIU Local 49 following up with $25,000 earlier this month. SEIU represents janitors, medical techs, food service workers and others at many Oregon hospitals.

The donations rank among the biggest Kotek has received, alongside donations from unions representing construction workers, carpenters, public employees and others. The latest tally puts Kotek’s war chest at $992,000.

Health care access for all and safe staffing at hospitals are two big issues at stake in this year’s elections, and Kotek is the nurses’ choice for delivering results, said ONA spokesperson Kevin Mealy. ONA met with Kotek, Read and Nicolas Kristof before picking Kotek, he said.

“Oregon’s next governor has the opportunity to address the many generational crises Oregonians are facing—including the COVID-19 pandemic, public health, homelessness, racism and climate change. We need a proven leader from day one who’s ready for the challenge,” Mealy said.

Kotek served in the House from 2007 to earlier this year, when she stepped down from her post as speaker.

Kotek and other Democratic leaders in the Legislature have passed a string of bills aimed at expanding health care insurance for Oregonians, curbing the rise of health care costs and pharmaceuticals, and regulating health care sector mergers.

Mealy noted that Drazan and other Republicans in 2021 opposed SB 428, a bill that continued the work of the Universal Health Care Task Force.Drazan also unsuccessfully opposed HB 3016 in 2021 that gave nurses a greater say in when and how hospitals can suspend their state-mandated nursing staff plans and cut nurse staffing levels in various hospital departments. 

Passage of HB 3016 was a major ONA goal last year, Mealy said.

“Kotek helped push this through the legislature while all Republicans except one sided with hospital CEOs and opposed this change,” Mealy said.

The ONA has substantial cash: $324,000 as of the latest count. It represents about 15,000 registered nurses and other health care workers in about 50 facilities in Oregon, mostly hospitals.

SEIU Local 49’s only campaign donation so far this year is $25,000 to Kotek. The union PAC has $550,000 cash on hand. The local has supported Kotek as she has risen through the ranks of the House. Since 2007, the PAC has given her campaigns a total of $176,500, election records show. It tends to channel its donations to Democratic party leaders rather than to rank and file lawmakers.

Kotek does have some industry support: the Oregon Health Care Association, which represents owners of nursing, rehabilitation and long-term care facilities, gave Kotek’s campaign $5,000 in January, as well as about $50,000 to a number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, but mainly Democrats. The group also gave Drazan $2,500 in late November. The PAC has $808,000 cash on hand.

Unions Vs. CEOs

Kotek values labor support, Kotek spokesperson Katie Wertheimer said.

“Oregon health care workers, the frontline heroes who cared for our communities during the last two years of COVID-19, support Tina,” she said. “Tina’s opponents are backed by hospital CEOs.”

Kotek wants to continue ongoing work such as reducing the number of Oregonians who lack health insurance and improving pay for behavioral health workers, she said.

Meanwhile, Read’s single biggest sign of support from the health care sector came in the form of a $40,000 check earlier this month from the Oregon Hospital Association. It’s the biggest donation Read has received this year. He has $761,000 cash on hand. His campaign did not return emails, phone calls or texts from The Lund Report seeking comment.

Some PACs for health care groups have not yet made gubernatorial contributions or made endorsements. One of these is the Coalition for Health Oregon, which represents seven coordinated care organizations that administer the Oregon Health Plan in different regions of the state.

The group donated $2,500 to Kotek, $1,000 to Johnson and $1,000 to Drazan in December as part of a string of donations to lawmakers. Dan Cushing, the association’s lobbyist, said his group was making those donations to the three as lawmakers rather than gubernatorial candidates.

Cushing said the group has interviewed several of the leading candidates for governor and hasn’t made an endorsement decision. The group has about $155,000 cash on hand to disperse as it pleases, he said.

“What we’re looking for in a governor is somebody who recognizes the role of (health care) providers and respects the patient-provider relationships,” Cushing said.

The coalition’s membership provides Oregon Health Plan coverage to more than 282,000 Oregonians. The coalition’s members are InterCommunity Health Network,  Advanced Health, AllCare Health, Cascade Health Alliance, Trillium Community Health Plan, Umpqua Health Alliance, Yamhill Community Care Organization and InterCommunity Health Network.

Battle Lines Drawn

Labor unions and hospital systems both want an in with whoever wins in November, Moore said. They want to be involved when the state mulls new policies and sets them in motion.

Moore said some lines are already clearly drawn in the gubernatorial race.

“The unions are going to up their contributions because they want to make darn sure that they get a Democratic governor,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said, “Hospitals want state leaders who understand the delicate balancing act that hospital systems carry out.”

Labor’s favorite, Kotek, as a longtime House leader, is the embodiment of a legislature that hospital executives view as meddlesome and restrictive. Hospital systems are particularly galled by the program lawmakers passed last year to regulate large health care mergers and acquisitions. So they are eager to see how momentum builds among the other candidates.

“Hospitals tend to go with the larger business community in their donations, and the larger business community has felt pushed out by both the Democrats and the Republicans in the last 10 years,” Moore said. 

You can reach Christian Wihtol at [email protected]

You can reach Ben Botkin at [email protected] or via Twitter @BenBotkin1.

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