Will The Money Generated By Oregon's Measure 101 Go Into The State's General Fund?

A sign in support of Oregon'south Measure 101 is displayed by a homeowner along a roadside in Lake Oswego, Ore. Tuesday's special election puts decisions over how the state funds Medicaid in voters' easily. Gillian Flaccus/AP hide caption

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Gillian Flaccus/AP

A sign in support of Oregon's Measure 101 is displayed by a homeowner along a roadside in Lake Oswego, Ore. Tuesday'southward special election puts decisions over how the state funds Medicaid in voters' hands.

Gillian Flaccus/AP

Oregon is in a battle royal over how to pay for expanded Medicaid.

The fight revolves effectually Measure 101, a ballot initiative that you accept to get back a few years to empathize.

During the 1990s, Oregon's and then-governor, John Kitzhaber, had a background in health care — he had worked as an emergency room doctor. His legacy in the state includes the expansion of health insurance for the poor, an idea he managed to sell to both Democrats and Republicans.

So when President Barack Obama proposed expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Oregon lawmakers on both sides of the aisle embraced it. As a result, some 95 percent of Oregonians at present have health insurance. That's among the highest rates in the nation.

But at present the federal government is trimming its contribution to Medicaid. And legislatures all around the U.S. are scrambling to find money to replace those federal payments.

In Oregon last summertime, Democrats joined with Republicans, hospital owners and health insurance CEOs to come upwardly with a revenue enhancement package that would fund the Medicaid expansion. And hospitals and insurance companies agreed to the plan, though they are on the hook for many of the included taxes.

Hither's where the wrinkle comes: Under state police force in Oregon, voters tin use the initiative procedure to collect signatures and force a public vote on any new taxation. And that's what state Rep. Julie Parrish did.

Parrish and others managed to get "Measure out 101" on Oregon's Tuesday election — putting part of the Medicaid taxation package passed last summertime into the hands of voters. If it succeeds not much will happen — the tax parcel will continue to fund Medicaid expansion. But if it fails, Oregon's Legislature will take to get back to the drawing board and come up with a new mode to pay for the health care of its poorest residents and others who rely on Medicaid.

Parrish is a Republican country legislator whose family was on Medicaid when she was a child.

Just she doesn't like the tax package.

"This is about a cardinal disagreement that taxing other people'south insurance is the way to fund Medicaid," she says. Parrish says the funding package Oregon came upward with is inequitable because it doesn't apply to big corporations and unions. Instead, she says, it hurts the little guy — people who couldn't afford to hire lobbyists.

"Small-scale businesses — mom and pop businesses," she says, ticking off the groups she thinks would unfairly bear the taxation burden under the country'due south plan. "Individuals who have to buy their own [health insurance]."

Parrish thinks Medicaid would be ameliorate-funded in Oregon with something similar a cigarette tax increase — although it'due south non clear that would generate enough coin or garner enough votes to laissez passer.

Cedric Hayden, a Republican representative from Falls Creek, is a dentist who accepts Medicaid patients and runs a charitable wellness clinic in Lane County. He is also a fellow member of Parrish's Stop Healthcare Taxes committee — the group that collected enough signatures to put Measure 101 on the ballot.

Hayden says if he and other members of his committee had been confronting funding Medicaid altogether, they could have insisted the Legislature'due south entire funding plan exist put upward for a public vote.

"We did not," he points out.

Instead, if canonical, Measure 101 would ratify the Medicaid expansion in Oregon that the Legislature approved last summer. But if Measure 101 fails, a part of that tax package volition be eliminated. A "no" vote would eliminate the 0.7 pct increment to an existing tax on hospitals that the Legislature wants. And information technology would as well stop a 1.v percentage revenue enhancement on health insurance contracts.

Information technology's unclear how the passage of Measure 101 would affect consumers. That's because, on ane hand, whatsoever new taxes would very likely be passed on to consumers. But on the other hand, Mensurate 101 funds a program that saves consumers of health intendance $300 a year.

Some Republicans in the land want a "no" vote. They don't like the new tax and they don't trust the Oregon Wellness Potency with the coin. They say the OHA wasted millions of dollars on things like Medicaid overpayments and CoverOregon — the webpage that initially sold Obamacare insurance.

On the "yes" side are all kinds of advocacy groups and the vast bulk of Oregon's health organizations. They say 48 other states have some form of this tax package to pay for Medicaid.

"The alternative of lack of coverage — we're talking kids, seniors, people with disabilities — is unacceptable," says Andy Van Pelt, the executive director of the Oregon Clan of Hospitals and Wellness Systems.

He says it is cheaper to treat people with health insurance than to treat them without insurance, when they plow upwardly sick in emergency rooms anyway.

"There's a existent possibility that people could lose their coverage. Information technology volition just destabilize the Medicaid program for hundreds of thousands of people, and that would be utter chaos," Van Pelt says.

While the Trump assistants hasn't managed to repeal the Affordable Intendance Human action, information technology has taken several steps to dismantle it.

The result of Measure 101 on Oregon'due south Medicaid expansion remains to be seen. If information technology fails, state lawmakers will spend the adjacent couple of months searching for new ways to pay for Medicaid expansion.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/01/23/579801327/part-of-oregons-funding-plan-for-medicaid-goes-before-voters

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