Health LLC, which gave $100,000, and Oregon Associa-
tion of Hospitals and Health Systems, which contributed
$90,000, as Eugene Weekly reported previously.
The Stop Healthcare Taxes PAC, leading the no vote,
has received contributions from various Republican party
groups and large contributions from individuals such as
Brian Maguire II and Andrew Miller and the All 36 PAC,
controlled by Republican Rep. Cedric Hayden, a major in-
fluence behind the push to put 101 on the ballot.
More than 160 organizations in Oregon support Yes on
101, according to the Yes for Healthcare campaign. A cur-
sory look at the Voters' Pamphlet shows a slew of nurses,
doctors, health care advocates, hospitals and educators
supporting the measure.
In Lane County, Yes on 101 is supported by the Demo-
cratic Socialists of America (DSA), Our Revolution Lane
County, Indivisible Eugene, the National Organization for
Women, the Democratic Party of Lane County and Health
Care for All Oregon.
“We can trust that these dollars are going into health
care in Oregon,” Fahey said. “In some cases it’s up to $16
[in Federal matching] for every dollar of funding through
this approach, and then that funding is returned to Oregon
and is completely earmarked for health care.”
Several citizens came forward with their personal sto-
ries about Medicaid in support of Measure 101 at the Jan. 4
town hall. Susan Bliven, a Eugene resident, said, “Without
Medicaid, I would die.” She said she had a tumor stran-
gling her spinal cord, and once she became too sick to
work. “We went from a solidly middle class family making
$100,000 a year to living on Lee’s [Social Security disabil-
ity insurance],” she said of her husband.
“Access to Medicaid keeps my family from having to
decide between paying for food, housing and other neces-
sities or life-giving medical care,” she concluded, tearing
up.
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The chair of the local DSA chapter, Jen McKinney, shared
her own story. Her daughter Beatrix was born at 29 weeks,
weighing only 2 pounds, due to McKinney’s complications
from an infection during pregnancy. She had to take 6 weeks
off from work to care for her young daughter.
“We had to stay home because she was immune com-
promised,” McKinney said at the town hall. “There’s noth-
ing wrong with her today. But her entire life she will have a
pre-existing condition because she was born early because of
something that happened to me.”
“That is not her fault. She should never be denied health
care because of something that was not her fault.”
“We were on OHP and that was the only thing that saved
us,” she added. McKinney says Measure 101 has to pass or
she will lose her health insurance. “We don’t need slick bro-
chures to tell us to care about our fellow citizens. It’s very,
very telling that they need that” on the opposition side, she
said.
But other citizens raised concerns regarding the measure.
Charlie Hibberd stood up at the town hall to say he’s pay-
ing $16,500 a year for health insurance he can’t even use
because of the high deductibles.
“I’m never going to be able to use my health insurance
or I’ll never be able to go to the doctor unless I have a cata-
strophic problem, and it’s costing me $16,500 a year, with
the high deductible. Now you tell me these insurance com-
panies aren’t going to add those costs on to my health plan
sooner or later?” Hibberd asked.
Fahey responded, “There is no doubt that the way we
structure health care in this country is not working. It’s bro-
ken.”
She added that Measure 101 does include a stipulation
that insurers can raise prices by no more than 1.5 percent
to cope with the 1.5 percent assessment, but she says it will
keep costs 6 percent lower for individuals buying their own
insurance due to the reinsurance program in Measure 101
that stabilizes health insurance premiums by spreading the
cost of high-risk buyers between all the companies.
Parrish takes issue with this view, saying that the reinsur-
ance program, which helps insurance companies “offset the
costs of high-risk patients,” helps only the 200,000 people or
so in the individual markets (in addition to the one million
or so on Medicaid), not college students or small businesses.
The Voters' Pamphlet includes arguments in favor from
Disability Rights Oregon, 41 community hospitals across the
state, numerous Latino groups, Oregon Pediatricians, Wom-
en’s groups, including Planned Parenthood, and the Oregon
Nurses Association. The arguments in opposition section in-
cludes 27 arguments, 16 of which are furnished by Parrish.
Parrish’s main concern seems to be that Measure 101 is
“unfair” and that it may overfund Medicaid. She suggests
funding Medicaid with a proposed tobacco tax.
Parrish’s largest campaign contributors in the past few
years include Anheuser Busch — an out-of-state beverage
company ($25,000), Stimson Lumber Company ($15,000),
the Associated Oregon Industries PAC ($25,000) and the Or-
egon Food Political Action Committee ($10,000).
At the town hall in Junction City, one citizen named Rep.
Parrish as one of her enemies. Mary Stewart addressed her
concerns toward the senators and representatives petitioned
for 101 but who weren’t in the room. “What do they have
against the elderly, the chronically sick, the unemployed, and
what do they have against children?” she asked. “Why do
they want to take a child who needs treatment and deny them
insurance?”
Mary Stewart says her daughter contracted melanoma
at age 26 and would have been stuck without insurance as a
student if it weren’t for OHP.
“If I lose her, I will guarantee that you will never, ever
win an elected seat again,” Stewart said of the legislators she
blamed for 101, “because I will do everything I can to find a
candidate and defeat you if I have to do it myself.”
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eugeneweekly.com • January 11, 2018
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