Oregon faces a $1 billion budget hole, which could be offset if legislators authorize another hospital assessment tax when they meet in Salem next February.
That was the conclusion drawn by gubernatorial candidate and State Representative Dennis Richardson (R-Central Point), who’s trying to stop Gov. John Kitzhaber from seeking a fourth term.
Hospitals – along with nursing homes – bailed out the state in July 2013, after the Senate passed the assessment tax, generating $1.4 billion in matching funds from the federal government to fund health and human services, including the state’s Medicaid program.
While the lobbyists for the long-term care industry agreed to keep the tax running through 2020, the hospitals would only consent to a two-year extension, perhaps, according to some insiders, as a way of leveraging their ability to influence lawmakers on other key issues such as their battles with the coordinated care organizations.
From its perspective, the hospitals “continue to be part of stakeholder conversations about how to best fund healthcare transformation in this state,” according to Andy Van Pelt, chief operating officer with the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.
Oregon is able to leverage such a large amount of money from the federal government by assessing the value of its hospitals and nursing homes, then repaying these facilities based on their number of Medicaid patients. The facilities agree to tax themselves, on the risk that they will be reimbursed later.
Meanwhile, Richardson continued to lambast Cover Oregon for failing to meet its enrollment responsibilities when speaking Tuesday at the Pacific Northwest Benefits Conference.
“We’ve spent over $300 million, and now everything is being handled by the federal exchange but it’s still going to cost $10 per month for policyholders,” he told insurance brokers. “We cannot afford that kind of future for our healthcare. The next legislative session’s going to shut down Cover Oregon. It should have been done a year ago.”
The federal government is also going to reduce the amount of money in the future to run the coordinated care organizations – down from 6 percent to 4 percent, said Richardson who co-chaired the Joint Ways and Means Committee last session.
At the same time, Oregon’s moving toward a single-payer healthcare system, he contended, and will either take over by issuing so many mandates and regulations that the insurance companies will become what he called “surrogates for the government,” and just administer the benefits.
“We’re moving to where people won’t have the freedom to buy their own policy and have an insurance agent who can do the comparisons for them,” he continued. “It’s not the American way. As governor, I’ll help the economy and help people have rational choices and not move to where the government has all the power.”
Richardson was asked how the state could attract more primary care physicians to meet the demand of the decline in uninsured. He suggested following the lead of other states such as Texas which has implemented tort reform.
“We need balance to make sure doctors are protected from frivolous lawsuits and that patients are protected from frivolous doctors,” he concluded.
Diane can be reached at [email protected].
