OEBB

May 16, 2012 -- Portland Public Schools Superintendent Carole Smith couldn’t have sounded more adamant when she told the Oregon Educators Benefit Board (OEBB) not to change the comparability rules allowing school districts to remain outside the state-run insurance pool.Unless school districts can prove that the health insurance plans they offer are within a 2.5 percent margin of what’s offered by OEBB, they must join the pool. The proposed rule, which has since been squashed, would have virtually doubled that difference to 4 percent.

March 2, 2012—After weeks of being stuck in the Legislature’s budget committee, the bill allowing Oregon’s health insurance exchange to proceed toward implementation is moving toward a House and Senate vote —along with a little baggage in the form of a completely unrelated amendment supported by Republicans.The legislation is expected to easily pass both chambers.

January 25, 2012 -- It can be very exasperating when an employer changes health plan options and people no longer have quite the same benefits. Irma Gentile faced that dilemma. An early retiree, she joined the Oregon Educators Benefit Board in 2008, choosing Providence Health Plan after reviewing the other three choices available to her.

December 14, 2011—The 600,000 people on the Oregon Health Plan aren’t the only ones who will see their healthcare delivered by the newly-formed coordinated care organizations (CCOs).