Wider health coverage pushed

Bill would raise tobacco tax by 60 cents per pack



PETER WONG

Statesman Journal



June 24, 2005



More than five months into the 2005 session, lawmakers from both parties are proposing to extend health insurance coverage to many of the 600,000 Oregonians without it.



The plan unveiled this week by four lawmakers, including Rep. Billy Dalto of Salem, hinges on a cigarette-tax increase of 60 cents per pack to pay for it.



They are asking their colleagues to put the tax on the November 2006 ballot for voters to decide.



Dalto said that even referring a tax increase to voters is a big hurdle. Lawmakers are working toward adjournment, the chambers are divided between the parties and Republicans who control the House have opposed considering tax increases.



Still, Dalto said, the lack of coverage for many Oregonians is an even bigger problem.



"For years, we were known as an innovative leader in delivering health care to our most vulnerable citizens," said Dalto, a Republican who leads the House Health and Human Services Committee.



"Not anymore. Now, we're struggling to offer even the most basic level of care to Oregonians in need. We need a new, sustainable long-term approach to covering uninsured Oregonians."



About one in six Oregonians has no health-insurance coverage, state statistics show. That is almost as high as it was a decade ago, before the state broadened its traditional Medicaid program into the Oregon Health Plan.



Voters rejected a 2002 measure that would have financed expanded coverage with higher income and payroll taxes.



"We are strongly in support of a tobacco tax that is as high as we can get it," said Ellen Pinney, the executive director of the Oregon Health Action Campaign, a coalition based in Salem that supports expanded coverage.



"The priority should go to children and those formerly eligible for benefits under the standard portion of the Oregon Health Plan."



The other sponsors of the latest plan are Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, and Sens. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, and Ben Westlund, R-Tumalo.



"This attacks the problem in a large enough way to make a difference," said Greenlick, a retired professor at Oregon Health & Science University who is on Dalto's committee.



The plan would extend coverage to all 106,000 Oregon children without it. It also would restore coverage under the Oregon Health Plan for about 25,000 people, many of them single adults and childless couples under the federal poverty level, who lost it during budget cuts in the past three years.



"You can argue whether health care is a choice," said Bates, a physician, "but it certainly is not a choice for children."



Last month, lawmakers talked about qualifying an initiative measure for the 2006 ballot to establish a right to health care, but it lacked specifics.



In the latest plan, Pinney raised questions about the expansion of state-subsidized employer insurance and health-savings accounts, which she speculated might have been included to draw Republican support.



Oregon's current cigarette tax is $1.18 per pack, which as of Jan. 1 tied with Arizona for 13th-highest in the nation.



Oregon voters have approved increases in tobacco taxes twice in the past decade: a 30-cent increase in 1996 and a 60-cent increase in 2002, both for health care.



However, when voters rejected an income-tax increase in 2004, it also ended a 10-cent cigarette tax that had been in effect since 1993 to pay for health insurance. Health advocates are seeking to revive that tax.



"We hope this plan does not distract from our current mission of persuading the Legislature to reinstate this tax," Pinney said.



The Oregon Constitution requires revenue-raising measures to originate in the House and pass both chambers by 60 percent majorities.



Assessing the chances of a tax referral by the Legislature late in this session, Dalto likened the situation to a professional basketball championship: "They say you watch only the last five minutes of the game."



Westlund led the House effort in 2003 to overhaul the Oregon Health Plan. He said that rising costs of health-insurance coverage threaten how competitive Oregon and U.S. businesses can be in global markets.



"The health-care crisis is upon us now," he said.