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SALEM – A legislative session marked by partisan tension is entering its final weeks with plenty of unfinished business on the health care front.
The first congressional hearing on a “Medicare-for-all” bill in at least a decade took place Tuesday, but without the usual phalanx of T-shirted supporters — or even the presidential candidates — who have been pushing the bill.
Industrial nations worldwide offer universal health care in several forms, while the United States lags and may — on a federal level — lack the political will or capability to make a significant change, according to panelists who spoke Wednesday at the Oregon Health Forum.
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The Oregon Legislature launched a panel 10 months ago to develop a roadmap for affordable statewide universal health care. The task was ambitious. Similar efforts in other states have gotten nowhere, and there is scant support at the federal level for expanding Medicaid.
The need for the U.S. to fix its broken health system by providing universal care is a topic that has come up again this election cycle, with many politicians and constituents calling for health care reform.
T.R Reid is hoping that Colorado is the first state in the nation to provide a healthcare system that covers everyone. But he’d still be happy if Oregon got there first.
“Some state has to get this going and prove that it will work and then it will spread,” Reid said.
The universal healthcare study that the Oregon Legislature authorized in 2013 has run into roadblocks to funding, and if money for the study is not raised soon, a comprehensive analysis may be impossible before the 2015 session.
Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, told The Lund Report after a town hall meeting Monday that the study would need nine months to complete. With the next session just 11 months away, researchers would need to begin in May but fundraisers are nowhere close to their goal of $200,000 to $600,000.
July 1, 2013 — The House passed a universal healthcare study bill 37-23, clearing the way for private money to fund a comprehensive study into what advocates consider the most equitable and cost-effective means of financing healthcare for all Oregonians.
