Oregon health plan goes to the governor

Wednesday, November 26, 2008 11:11 AM PST

SALEM (AP) — Gov. Ted Kulongoski says he will recommend $5 million in state spending toward the goals set Tuesday in a report from a task force that describes the health care system in Oregon as broken.

He also said he would support continuing a tax on health care providers as a means of insuring children who don’t have coverage, which he has made a priority.

‘‘It’s going to happen,’’ he said Tuesday at a press conference with legislators and the Oregon Health Fund Board.

The board was created by the Legislature in 2007, and presented its final report Tuesday.

It said money from taxing health care providers would bring in enough new federal funds to provide coverage for more than 100,000 uninsured children and 100,000 low-income adults during the next two years.

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The board says the goal should be within a decade to transform the health care system, control costs, promote better health and provide insurance for the remainder of the more than 600,000 uninsured residents.

The board emphasized the necessity of changing the system.

‘‘Oregonians cannot simply put more good money into a broken system and expect that it will work,’’ its report said.

‘‘I am optimistic that the board’s report will help change the fundamental problem with our health care system: It costs too much and covers too few,’’ Kulongoski said in a statement.

His budget is due next month, and the Legislature meets in January. The board’s recommendations include establishing an Oregon Health Authority, which Kulongoski said could begin as a data collection center.

Some Oregonians are saying the plan doesn’t move fast enough in the face of rising health care costs that are strapping even those who do have coverage. Dr. Evan Saulino, who works in a Portland safety-net clinic, and former Gov. John Kitzhaber, founder of a health-reform project called the Archimedes Movement, have urged the Oregon board to move with more urgency.

‘‘We find the action plan short on action,’’ Saulino said.

Dr. Leigh Dolin, 62, former president of the Oregon Medical Association, said he lost his health insurance after he retired from practice a year ago, and insurers denied coverage because he and his wife have pre-existing conditions. Both are in good health, but she had a knee-joint replacement four years ago, and he takes two medications for an enlarged prostate.

Their only alternative is a state pool that he said is mainly designed for catastrophic coverage.