Sen. Tim Knopp

After a personal appeal from Sen. Bates to Sen Winters, SB 1542 skirted through the Senate Wednesday, giving senior citizens a public option to meet their long-term care needs. If the House agrees, the Home Care Commission would expand beyond its Medicaid clientele to serve people paying for in-home caregivers with their own money.

The Silver Alert bill requires police agencies to develop policies to find and assist seniors with dementia who get lost. The bill also orders the Oregon Health Authority to more proactively ward against Medicaid fraud. Several other bills passed the House Friday, including a bill to codify equipment testing protocol for dentists and one that will study giving parents the option of subsidized private insurance instead of the Oregon Health Plan for their children.

April 22, 2013 — The Senate voted 17-11 on Monday to pass a less restrictive version of a teenage tanning salon ban than the one that passed the House overwhelmingly, prohibiting the practice for children under 17 without a doctor’s note.