From: ellmyer@macsolve.com
Subject: I've Armed You For The Debate - Now It's Your Turn
Date: January 18, 2005 7:56:34 AM PST
To: oregonhealth@macsolve.com

Questions you need to ask everyone you engage in conversation or debate on the matter of making health care affordable to all Oregonians are these:
Do you have health insurance?
Do I pay for a part of your health insurance with my property or income taxes?
Am I excluded from your insurance pool of participants?
Do you believe that every Oregonian should have the right to affordable health care?
If yes, then what have you done to support the Oregon Community Health Care Bill*?

As we begin to sort out the greedy, immoral and pessimistic from the needy, moral and optimistic let us give thoughtful consideration to the meaning and consequences of the following statistics.

Estimated UNcompensated hospital care statewide 2004: $541,000,000
(Data provided by Oregon Association of Hospitials and Health systems http://www.oahhs.org/data/uncomp/uncompensated_care.htm )
So the question arises, With these enormous losses why aren't Oregon hospitals declaring bankruptcy? Who's subsidizing this bad debt expense to keep these businesses not just afloat but profitable?


Portland Public School District:
Employees: 5,900 ? (PPS)
Employees + dependents: 14,750 [employee x 2.5]
Cost for health insurance in 2004: $53,490,000 + (PPS) to $65,844,000 (Oregonian)
Average annual health insurance cost per employee: $9,066+ (PPS) to $11,160 (Oregonian)
Average annual health insurance cost per covered individual: $3,626+ (PPS) to $4,464 (Oregonian)
(Data provided by the Oregonian http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/110518951384020.xml and PPS.)
The discrepancy in costs needs to be examined. It took PPS more than twenty days to "find" the incomplete information they furnished. This public data, reflecting an often volatile issue at the center of controversy, is obviously so important that it should be both accurate and readily available.


Multnomah County:
Employees: 4,103
Employees + dependents: 10,257 [employee x 2.5]
Cost for health insurance in 2004: $38,424,886
Average annual health insurance cost per employee: $9,365
Average annual health insurance cost per covered individual: $3,746
(Data provided by the County Chair's Office.)
County Chair Diane Linn FAILED in her promise to reduce Portland Public School's health insurance costs. It's time for her to try and redeem herself by a commitment to enroll all county and public school employees in a revised Oregon Health Plan.


City of Portland:
Employees: 5,289
Employees + dependents: 14,027
Cost for health insurance in 2004: $41,687,143
Average annual health insurance cost per employee: $7,882
Average annual health insurance cost per covered individual: $2,972
(Data provided by the Bureau of Finance and Management.)
The Oregonian reported substantially higher current and future costs. See http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/portland_news/1101905886101830.xml . The city council needs to publish the projected increases and total costs for health insurance over the next four years and explain why supporting the Oregon Community Health Care Bill* which could decrease health care costs by 20% (a savings of more than 34 million dollars over four years - that's a lot of police, parks and pot holes) is not a better idea than agreeing to support skyrocketing and unstoppable increases in health insurance costs which diminish the amount of other important city services. City employees with health care provided under collective bargaining agreements (78%) must answer the same question.


State of Oregon:
Employees: 48,443
Employees + dependents: 121,107 [employee x 2.5]
Cost for health insurance in 2004: $368,716,736
Average annual health insurance cost per employee: $7,611
Average annual health insurance cost per covered individual: $3,045
(Data provided through the Governor's office.)
Kulongoski should STOP political pandering to public school employees and recognize that he is the governor of EVERY Oregonian. And ALL of us should be in the same health insurance pool.


Current Oregon Health Plan:
The budget for all of the Oregon Health Plan for 2005 is $1,565,000,000
(Data provided by Oregon DHS through Representative Earl Blumenauer's office.)
OHP Plus is for 362,000 low-income and disabled Oregonians whose coverage is largely required by federal Medicaid law.
(Data provided by the Oregonian http://www.oregonlive.com/healthfit/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1100696266146760.xml )
Cost for health insurance in 2005 paid by Medicaid: $1,442,500,000
Average annual health insurance cost per covered individual: $3,984
OHP Standard offers fewer benefits for 24,000 adult Oregonians with incomes below the federal poverty line in 2005. [Dropped from 100,000 in previous two years.]
Estimated cost for health insurance in 2005 paid by taxes on hospitals and managed care plans, 40%, plus federal matching medicaid dollars, 60%: $122,500,000
Average annual health insurance cost per covered individual: $5,104
Someone needs to explain how $3,984 buys more benefits than $5,104. [DHS staff promises to respond in near future.]
Oregonian Offers Alternative Numbers
OHP Standard offers fewer benefits for 24,000 adult Oregonians with incomes below the federal poverty line in 2005. [Dropped from 100,000 in previous two years.]
Estimated cost for health insurance in 2005 paid by taxes on hospitals and managed care plans, 235 Million, plus federal matching medicaid dollars, 142.5Million: $377,500,000
Average annual health insurance cost per covered individual: $15,729
(Data provided by the Oregonian http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/110510307655450.xml )
Someone needs to explain this whopping 255 million dollar difference.


Oregon Businesses:
Employees: ?
Employees + dependents: ?
Cost for health insurance in 2004: $ ?
Average annual health insurance cost per employee: $ ?
Average annual health insurance cost per covered individual: $ ?
(No data currently available.)
There is a tremendous opportunity here for Oregon businesses to substantially reduce their health insurance costs while at the same time assuring health care coverage for all of their employees. The Association of Oregon Industries and every business lobbyist in Salem should be aggressively encouraging the introduction of this draft legislation.*


The Genie Is Out Of The Bottle
A plan* has been publicly presented to include each of the organizations mentioned above as well as similar entities throughout Oregon to significantly reduce their health care costs and extend health care benefits to every Oregonian. No future public discussion about any public budget, public employee benefits or public bonds for any school district or government in the state of Oregon will be legitimate nor can it conclude without reference to and consideration of this plan* regardless of whether it becomes a bill during the 2005 legislative session.

My fellow Oregonians - voters, elected officials, political activists, media, citizens. If you don't stand up and be counted NOW in support of the ONLY plan on the public table that can make health care affordable to all Oregonians as well as local governments and public educational institutions then when will you? A favorite expression of card players is most apt here. My hand is face up on the table and my money is in the pot. It's time for you to PUT UP OR SHUT UP.

Politics is always a contact sport. It is often a blood sport. If you are not prepared to bleed and draw blood then you must get off the field.


Richard Ellmyer
Portland, Oregon
* http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/health.html

P.S. Those of you in the media who believe that your job/career/profession has something to do with informing the public about matters relevant to their survival please don't forget 76,000 + of your fellow Oregonians who were recently excluded from the Oregon Health Plan. Surely they would appreciate news that there is a plan, the Oregon Community Health Care Bill*, they can support. It could make available to these Oregonians health care equivalent to that of the lawmakers that tossed them to the same wolves so ominously displayed on our television screens during the presidential campaign. Electronic journalists and media corporations whose salaries and bottom lines were supported in part by these political advertisements should feel a special moral obligation to members of their audience that have been left out in the cold.