University junior Shannon O’Leary pays $78 for each X-ray of her knee at Student Health Center. Her frequent check-ups on her tendinitis rack up the bills, but maybe not for long.
In the future, O’Leary and all other Oregonians may not have to pay a dime for health coverage if former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s proposed health plan is put into effect. The former emergency room doctor announced his goal to implement drastic reforms to the Oregon health care system to provide free health care to all Oregonians. He hopes to get an initiative in November’s elections and possibly enact legislation in 2007.
Kitzhaber’s plan says that pooling tax dollars and federal funds that currently pay for Medicare and Medicaid with the tax break employers currently receive for providing medical insurance for their employees would create an approximate $6.4 billion fund. That fund would provide universal coverage for everyone in the state, yet allow citizens to purchase private insurance if they wanted.
That money breaks down to about $2,000 per person per year, which Kitzhaber said isn’t enough to provide for all Oregonians because the current health care system is too inefficient. However, by overhauling the system to be more cost-effective, the funds would be enough, he told the Register-Guard.
Brian Terrett, a PeaceHealth spokesman for Eugene’s Sacred Heart Medical Center, said the hospital currently does everything it can to be as efficient as possible. The company devotes an entire department – the Continuous Health Care Improvement Division – to ensuring that the hospital operates as efficiently as possible.
“We’ve worked hard for more than a decade to find the most efficient methods,” Terrett said.
Currently, 609,000 Oregonians are without health insurance. Without insurance, problems that are relatively inexpensive to treat, such as high blood pressure, go unchecked and eventually lead to larger health problems such as heart attacks or strokes, which are more costly to treat.
Terrett said Sacred Heart programs are currently in place to try to provide preventative care.
As a non-profit hospital, Sacred Heart spent $42 million in charitable care last year for patients who couldn’t afford the care they needed, Terrett said. This number is up from $23 million in 2004 and $16 million in 2003, he said.
The director of the University Health Center, Tom Ryan, said he sees problems with the current health care system and Kitzhaber’s plan is an excellent idea.
“From a medical prospective, it would be wonderful because there is nothing more painful to see than (someone) who needs care and can’t afford it,” he said.
Ryan said that the $109 students currently pay to the Health Center in incidental fees each term would no longer be necessary, as well as the $6 fee for each visit.
“It terms of impact (on students) it will free up money for students to go to college because parents won’t have to pay for insurance,” he said.
Kitzhaber’s plan has a better chance of gaining support than similar proposals have in the past, Ryan said.
“I think that times have changed since then,” he said.
Eugene’s Oregon State Senator Vicki Walker issued a press release to voice her support of Kitzhaber’s plan.
“I believe the time has come for action. Simply tinkering around the administrative edges does not live up to our responsibility to those who need us most,” she said.
Terrett said his primary concern with Kitzhaber’s plan is what exactly is meant by “universal coverage.”
“When you talk about these kinds of plans, the devil is in the details,” he said. “If there is a basic package of services, then there is a possibility for it to work.”
“From a hospital prospective, the biggest challenge that we have is if we can get fair compensation for the services that we provide,” he said.
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