The Oregon Legislature has passed SJR 12, which refers Measure 401 to the voters. If approved by the voters, it would add to the Oregon Constitution, a right of every Oregonian to receive health care and require the State of Oregon to fund this right.

Though Oregon is very close to having nearly all Oregonians with some kind of health care, the passage of this measure could be very expensive for the state. One can easily imagine what happens when an industry whose costs are spiraling out of control secures a mandate that government pay the bill. If you think there's little incentive for the health care industry to control costs now, wait until they can send unlimited invoices to the government, which is required to pay them.

This isn't the first time Oregonians have been presented with a chance to get the government to fully fund an industry. At the turn of the century, education activists -- driven by teachers' unions and spearheaded by then Governor John Kitzhaber -- proposed a ballot measure to change the Oregon Constitution which would require the state to fully fund education at levels to achieve goals set by Oregon law. The voters overwhelmingly approved it by a vote of 66%. Article VIII, Section 8 of the Oregon Constitution now reads:

Adequate and Equitable Funding. (1) The Legislative Assembly shall appropriate in each biennium a sum of money sufficient to ensure that the state's system of public education meets quality goals established by law, and publish a report that either demonstrates the appropriation is sufficient, or identifies the reasons for the insufficiency, its extent, and its impact on the ability of the state's system of public education to meet those goals.

Soon after, a lawsuit was filed, Pendleton School District v. State of Oregon, by 18 school districts and seven students demanding more funding based on this provision. The case made it's way to the Oregon Supreme Court where the court decided that, though the state was not adequately funding education, the voters did not intend for the courts to enforce it.

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Might the same thing happen with health care funding? As with education funding, the voters are presented with an unarguable good -- then education, now health care -- that's hard to vote against. As with education, the state is merely required to fund it. No funding mechanism or revenue source is identified, making it easier for the voters to support. Like education funding, health care funding might find a similar fate, as idealists propose a utopian solution, and a sober state finds a way to not fund the dream.


--Mike Nearman

Post Date: 2021-06-14 15:33:11

Last Update: 2021-07-06 19:28:02