Oregon to vote on single-payer health care system

The proposal would consolidate current health spending to cover everyone in the state.

By Markian Hawryluk, AMNews staff. Oct. 28, 2002.

Washington -- Oregonians will go to the polls Nov. 5 to decide whether to be guinea pigs in the nation's first universal health care program.

The proposal, ballot measure 23, would cobble together funding streams -- including personal and employer taxes, federal health programs and the state workers' compensation system -- to create a single-payer system that would provide health care to every person in the state.

The initiative would create a health plan covering 100% of medically necessary health care costs with no deductibles or cost sharing. Prescription drugs, preventive care, mental health services, long-term care, dental and vision care, and many alternative therapies would be covered.

A 15-member administrative board would oversee the plan and negotiate payment rates for physicians and other practitioners. Administrative costs would be capped at 5%.

Less than month before the vote, a Portland Tribune poll showed support for the measure trailing opposition by 36% to 39%, with 25% of voters still undecided.

Critics of the measure do not believe the plan can keep costs in line with its revenues. The Oregon Medical Assn. opposes the proposal.

"There are just no limits," said OMA spokesman Jim Kronenberg. "There would be no apparent control of utilization, no control of services, the patient could go to any sort of practitioner for any kind of problem without any real direction."

The plan would cover any services deemed necessary by a certified, licensed or registered practitioner. But in Oregon that includes a broad range of professions, Kronenberg said. "Oregon has reputation for licensing anybody who can breathe and says that they're a health care practitioner," he added. [...]