Street Roots • A pril 2 2 -2 8 , 2 0 1 6
Commentary
Page 14
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The job of protecting Oregonians’ health is not done
BY JANET BAUER
C O N TR IB U T IN G W RITER
F I ^ a k e all the people who live in Eugene
and Salem, Oregon’s second and
X . third largest cities.
Add to that the population of Corvallis,
the state’s tenth largest city.
What do you get?
You get about the same number of
Oregonians — some 380,000 — who are at
risk because they don’t have health
insurance.
Yes, the problem of Oregonians not
having health insurance remains significant,
even as the state has made a good deal of
progress in recent years. The Oregon
legislature needs to stay focused on how to
close the remaining gaps in health
insurance coverage.
Adequate health care is essential for
success in school, work and life. Lack of
health insurance puts people a t risk of
poorer health, increases the economic
vulnerability of families and adds
unnecessary costs to the health system. .
The good news is that Oregon made
progress in recent years in covering more
people. About 190,000 more Oregonians
had insurance in 2014 than in 2013, thanks
to the expansion of Oregon’s Medicaid
program — the Oregon Health Plan — and
the creation of a private health insurance
marketplace.
The bad news is that 10 percent of
Oregonians still have no health insurance.
And the problem is worse for som e groups
of Oregonians.
One of those groups is young adults. One
in five Oregonians between the ages of 25
and 34 had no health insurance in 2014,
according to recent data from the U.S.
Census. Without a regular source of health
care, they are likely going without
preventive health care, treatment for a
sudden illness, an injury or a chronic
condition like asthma.
Some communities of color in Oregon
also face barriers to health insurance.
About one in five Hawaiian and Pacific
Islanders, Latinos, and American Indian and
Alaska Natives were not insured in 2014. By
comparison, only about one in 13 non-
Hispanic white Oregonians lacked health
insurance.
Young adults and communities of color
tend to have lower incomes, which may help
explain why they are more likely to lack
health insurance. Health insurance is still
too expensive for many folks, even though
the Affordable Care Act has brought down
costs for individuals buying insurance in the
marketplace by providing subsidies.
The Oregonians who are most likely to
lack health insurance are folks who work for
very modest pay. These are lower-income
Oregonians who make too much to qualify
for the Oregon Health Plan and too little to
afford marketplace insurance without
straining the family budget Putting it in
dollar terms, a family of three with income
between $28,000 and $40,000 per year is in
this vulnerable group.
Nearly one in four of these lower-income
n e & n l e ’s FARMERS’ MARKET
Oregonians lacked health insurance in 2014.
Compare that with just one in 11
Oregonians with higher incomes who were
uninsured that year.
For these modest-income workers, the
recently concluded legislative session
brought some good news. In the closing
moments of the session, the legislature
enacted House Bill 4017, calling for the
creation of a plan to implement a Basic
Health Program in Oregon.
Basic Health is an option for states under
the Affordable Care Act and is specifically
tailored to cover lower-income people who
make too much to qualify for Medicaid. If
Oregon designs the program well, Basic
Health could be a much better deal for
them than marketplace plans. It could cover
more services. The coverage could be
considerably cheaper. Deductibles and
co-pays for seeing a doctor could shrink or
disappear. Another great feature of Basic
Health is that the federal government would
largely pick up the tab.
A well-designed Basic Health Program
would be a huge step forward for working
Oregonians who today are torn between
paying for health insurance and paying for
rent, transportation, clothes for the kids or
other household necessities.
The lack of health insurance continues to
undermine the health and security of many
Oregonians. While our state has made great
progress in recent years in extending health
coverage, there is more to be done. We
need to finish the job.
Janet Bauer is a
policy analyst with the
Oregon Center for
Public Policy (www.
ocpp.org), a non
partisan, non-profit
institute that does
in-depth research and
analysis on budget,
tax and economic
issues. The Center’s
goal is to improve
decision making and
generate more
opportunities for all
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