There Is Nothing More Important On Oregon's Legislative Agenda Than Resolving Our Moral And Economic Health Care Crisis
Dear Senator Carter and Representative Kotek:
Your refusal to submit the Oregon Community Health Care Bill, even as an action that costs you nothing as a mere token courtesy to your constituents, especially long time political activist and former staff advisor to the late senator Bill McCoy, Richard Ellmyer, and Portland city commissioner Sam Adams, was indefensible. It can only be explained as an undeclared, stealth commitment with the expectation of substantive rewards from the failed private health insurance industry or abandonment of your responsibility to protect your constituents by submission and cowardice in the face of the power of the failed private health insurance industry. It is either a selfish choice or a serious character flaw which makes you unworthy of elected office.
However, there is still time to absolve your past political sins and redeem yourselves. Before the end of this special legislative session you must read a press release on the floor of the house and senate that apologizes for:
A. Insulting Richard Ellmyer, Sam Adams and all of your constituents when you failed to afford them the well established legislative procedure of submitting a courtesy bill. Dropping off a courtesy bill is the very least you could have done to cover up the extremely bad judgement of not actively and enthusiastically supporting the Oregon Community Health Care Bill in the first place.
B. Insulting the nine elected officials and the million or so Oregonians that they represent when you failed to do anything to support their letter of March 12, 2007 (see below) asking the House and Senate to include their ideas in the deliberations of health care reform.
Then you need to express unequivocal support for the Oregon Community Health Care Bill.
If you do not do all of this then you will have established:
1. That your insults to Ellmyer, Adams and your constituents stand as intentional. (see A and B above)
2. That you will continue to disregard the basic tenants of our American democratic process which demands the free and open competition of ideas and will instead deny the elected officials who signed the aforementioned March 12, 2007 letter and the citizens they represent entry of their ideas and access to the legislative process on health care reform.
3. That you support Senate Bill 329 that:
A. Relies on the failed private health insurance industry model which you support.
B. Will cost a Billion Oregon taxpayer dollars (Said Rep. Mitch Greenlich at the Oregon Health Forum Aug. 15, 2007) which you will vote for by taxing your constituents.
C. Is so complex that its authors couldn't have made it more difficult for voters to understand if they tried. "It is so complex, it requires an accountant, an actuary, and a seer to understand what is intended" says John Frohnmayer, candidate for US Senate. (see statement below)
D. Fails to address the skyrocketing and unstoppable increased costs of public employee health care premiums resulting in larger decreases in delivered public services every year. (see list below)
E. Was written without any consideration or discussion of the ideas presented by elected officials in the previously mentioned March 12, 2007 letter. (see below)
I would urge you to remind your colleagues in the House and Senate the ALL of them share in the blame and disgrace perpetrated by House Speaker Merkley and Senate President Courtney when they too ignored the basic American democratic principles of fair play and competition of ideas in the public arena and disrespected the legitimate, reasonable and civil requests of nine elected Oregon public officials and the million Oregonians they represent. All of these legislators must also come forward with a public apology if they expect the voters and citizens of Oregon to give them and the public institution they are a part of the respect which is necessary to be reelected and to govern effectively.
Richard Ellmyer
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March 12, 2007
Dear House Speaker Merkley and Senate President Courtney:
The current legislative debate over health care reform in our state does not include our view that the profit oriented private health insurance industry must not be the model upon which a solution to Oregon's moral and economic health care crisis should be based and that Oregon elected officials - public employees - voters and taxpayers must have equal access to the same level of health care not a perpetuation of our current multitiered health insurance class system.
We request that you find a place holder bill in each chamber which would substitute in its entirety the language of the Oregon Community Health Care Bill (see attached) so that an alternative choice may be discussed and debated this session. The Oregon Community Health Care Bill is the only current fully formed piece of proposed legislation which supports our vision of health care reform. We would welcome others that also meet our requirements.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Richard Ellmyer - Oregon Community Health Care Bill author
Sam Adams - Portland City Council
Jeff Cogen - Multnomah County Commissioner
Edwars "Chip" Enbody - Hubbard City Council
Darrell Flood - Mayor of Lafayette
Bill Hall - Lincoln County Commissioner
Jim Needham - Mollala City Council
Michelle Ripple - Wilsonville City Council
Mary Schamehorn - Mayor of Bandon
Pete Sorenson - Lane County Commissioner
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FYI - A Sampling Of Maximum Current Public Employer Contributions To Public Employee Health Insurance Benefits
Dollar figures are for individual paychecks per month.
Multnomah County - $ 1,282
City of Eugene - $ 1,256
City of Portland - $ 1,246
Portland Public Schools - $ 1,217
Oregon State University - $1,188
Portland State University - $ 1,129
City of Gresham - $1,120
University of Oregon - $ 1,084
State of Oregon - $ 1,006
Beaverton School District - $ 921
Multnomah County ESD - $ 768
Metro Regional Government - $ 763
Lane ESD - $ 750
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PRESS CONFERENCE, REMARKS ON HEALTH CARE COVERAGE
December 17, 2007
JOHN FROHNMAYER, Candidate for U.S. Senate 2008
Dave Flowers owned a Pizzeria. He had 25 employees but couldn’t provide health insurance because he couldn’t afford the premiums. He experienced the health care crisis by living it - a viral infection almost collapsed his heart. While he found insurance for his wife and two children, no insurance was available to him because of his pre-existing condition. He couldn’t work full time and he was frustrated and scared -- one major illness or injury away from financial ruin. You know Dave because he is just like your neighbor, your co-worker, maybe yourself.
Germany has had universal health coverage since 1883 - 125 years. Canada has had it for 40 years. We believe in the inalienable right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and we can’t have life without health.
During this holiday season, we will read some of the most heart wrenching stories, and many of us will offer our help, but individuals cannot help all the 600,000 uninsured Oregonians. This is the United States of America in the 21st century. We must do better.
In 2005, the United States’ largest private health insurer, United Health Group, paid its CEO 122.7 million dollars in salary. Within the last month, California fined Health Net, another major private health provider, one million dollars for wrongfully denying claims that were valid but, in the opinion of the insurer, were going to cost too much. Health Net paid a $20,000 bonus to the employee who unlawfully and immorally denied these claims.
The private insurance model is the wrong model, yet it is favored by Senator Gordon Smith on the federal level and by the Oregon legislature in Senate Bill 329. I say to you, “No, No, 1,000 times No. That is the wrong model.”
I have been on the opposite side of insurance companies for my entire legal career and I can tell you that the for-profit insurance model is dedicated to accumulating as much as possible and paying as little as possible. That is not what we need for health insurance but that is the very model Jeff Merkley and Gordon Smith favor, and I say. “No.”
I believe that:
1. Any health care delivery system must be not-for-profit and run by the federal government on the national level and the State of Oregon on the local level.
2. Any system must allow the individual to choose his or her doctors and health professionals.
3. The system must increase the number of primary care physicians, pediatricians, and other health care professionals to deliver high-quality health services affordably, efficiently and equitably to the whole population.
4. The system must integrate all health care services and adequately pay for the best medical professionals. Doctors tell me now that they lose money on every Medicare patient. That is not a fair system.
5. Finally, we must emphasize preventive care and promote healthy life styles in nutrition, exercise, check-ups and prenatal care. We must reinstate physical education in our schools along with classes in healthy living. Childhood obesity is an epidemic that will challenge any health care system and must be addressed immediately.
As your Senator, I will work tirelessly for a universal single payer system in the United States. That simply means that we take the health care system out of the hands of for-profit companies that now spend approximately one-third of the total health care costs on administration, salaries and advertising. That’s one-third of 2.2 trillion dollars. We spend twice what Germany, Canada and Australia spend, and we still have 47 million uninsured.
What will universal coverage cost? Less than we’re paying now. Today the average worker pays 24% of the cost of health insurance premiums. A payroll tax on all employers and employees would be far less than that, plus we wouldn’t have to pay deductibles or premiums. Efficiencies in the system would result in a far lower cost to the individual along with the comfort of knowing that when you go to the doctor, you just present your card and you’re covered. Any additional cost could be covered by a one-tenth of one percent tax on stock and bond transfers and repealing the tax cuts for the super rich that the Bush-Cheney administration has embraced.
The grim reality is that Oregonians know that health care costs will continue to rise if we don’t change the private for-profit insurance company system. I want to distinguish myself from Senator Smith on this issue. In July of 2006, he suggested an incremental, voluntary policy that would give public subsidies to private insurers. Wrong. Wrong. To continue to help big business but give the impression you are doing something by tweaking the status quo is not the leadership Oregon needs.
Now let’s look at the state of Oregon and the work of the 2007 legislature. Its members, led by Jeff Merkley, passed Senate Bill 329. It again uses the discredited, inefficient, and expensive private insurance model. If they had bothered to fund it, it would cost Oregon taxpayers one billion dollars. It is so complex, it requires an accountant, an actuary, and a seer to understand what is intended.
But what is most disturbing about Senate Bill 329 is that while it purports to embrace public input, Speaker Merkley failed even to respond to a letter from elected officials representing over a million Oregonians requesting that the legislature consider the Oregon Community Health Care Bill that is essentially a single payer system on the state level. That March 12, 2007 letter is available for your perusal. Speaker Merkley did not favor these Oregon leaders with a reply, nor did the legislature consider this sensible approach. Likewise, the efforts of the Archimedes Project, led by former Governor John Kitzhaber were disregarded.
What are the problems with Senate Bill 329 beyond its complexity and vagueness? First, we can’t control the cost of private insurance. I support union efforts to cover workers, and yet the cost of private health insurance has so skyrocketed that Multnomah County pays as much as $1,459 per month to many of its employees. We taxpayers can’t afford this, the Counties can’t afford it, and the workers certainly can’t shoulder those costs themselves. The result is more and more employers, both public and private are opting out of insurance. Senate Bill 329 will not fix this.
Senate Bill 329, with its private health insurance model, will not encourage preventive care that we need to promote healthy lives, and pre-existing conditions are left to be negotiated, so thousands can be denied.
We must demand that the Oregon legislature respond to its citizens‘ concerns. Here’s what I implore the Oregon legislature to do: First, consider the recommendations of the Oregon Community Health Care Plan (the letter that Speaker Merkley refused to acknowledge). It is not based on a private health insurance model - the state would be the administrator; it emphasizes preventive care, it would save all public institutions and government employers 20% per year in premiums; it would provide uniform benefits for both public employees and private citizens, with no pre-existing exclusions. The legislature has an obligation to pursue the best, most efficient model for all Oregonians.
Second, the legislature should in its upcoming February session, amend SB 329 to allow consideration of the proposal of the Mid-Valley Health Advocates from Corvallis. It is the work of tireless advocates for health including many physicians and other health professionals. It, too, proposes a not for profit model.
Solutions to our health crisis are not easy - they are not facile - they are not susceptible to sound bites. But this we know: incremental change is not good enough; tinkering around the edges won’t fix the problem; pandering to big pharmaceuticals and big health care organizations is politics at its worst. We can fix this problem if we are strong, dedicated and courageous enough to do it.
So let us start today to act upon our conviction that all of us deserve the opportunity to be healthy. Let us put people before profit and equity before private advantage. Let us reject spin, deception, and fear mongering. Let us establish the values that we are willing to live by and then act upon our convictions. Health care is our inalienable right.