Oregon lawmakers are rushing to give final approval to sweeping health care legislation with less than a week left in the session. But backers of other bills might have to settle for scaled-back versions or watch them perish.
Senate Republicans on Thursday ended their historic boycott that starved the chamber of a quorum for six weeks after reaching a deal with majority Democrats to water down abortion, gender-affirming care and gun bills.
One of the big compromises that is part of the deal is an amendment to House Bill 2002, a bill intended to secure access to reproductive health in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court striking down national abortion rights. The amendment specifies that minors under 15 can receive abortion services without parental consent if a provider believes that involving the minor’s parents would result in abuse or neglect.
State Rep. Rob Nosse, a Portland Democrat who chairs the Oregon Behavioral Health and Health Care Committee, told The Lund Report that the compromise means the session will proceed as it would have otherwise.
“I think for all the heartburn at the end of the day it’s going to be a little boring, like nothing to see here,” state Rep. Rob Nosse, a Portland Democrat who chairs the Oregon Behavioral Health and Health Care Committee, told The Lund Report. “Everything that we worked on in my committee that made it to the Senate is gonna pass.”
The Senate has scheduled for a vote Tuesday key health care legislation that had piled up during the impasse. Those bills include:
- House Bill 3320 clarifies hospital charity care requirements and gives state regulators more oversight.
- House Bill 2513 overhauls the state’s widely criticized drug decriminalization law by streamlining funding for treatment programs.
- House Bill 3008 restricts insurers from requiring that dental practices accept reimbursements via electronic credit cards that often carry high fees.
- House Bill 2446 extends the contracts with Oregon’s coordinated care organizations, regional insurers that oversee services for the Medicaid-funded Oregon Health Plan. The extension gives the organizations time to implement federally approved changes to the program
- Senate Bill 1089 will set up a board to oversee Oregon’s transition to a single-payer health system.
- Senate Bill 972 will transition Oregon from using the federal government’s healthcare.gov as its health insurance marketplace platform to a state-based exchange.
Other legislative committees are putting final touches on health care bills before lawmakers put them to a final vote.
Earlier in the session, lawmakers asked a for a new 50-cent cell phone tax to support and expand Oregon’s new 988 suicide prevention and crisis hotline. The House Revenue Committee is scheduled to hold a vote on House Bill 2757, which would fund the new service that advocates have said is key to filling in a gap in the state’s behavioral health system.
“Somewhat unexpectedly, Oregon has another opportunity to ensure that behavioral health crises receive a health care crisis response,” reads an email sent Friday by the Oregon chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
However, a proposed amendment to the bill lowers the tax to 40 cents.
House Bill 2697, a landmark hospital staffing bill that’s been the product of months of negotiations between unions and health systems, passed the House last week but was still in the Joint Ways and Means Committee Tuesday morning.
The deal clearing the way for the staffing bill included House Bill 2045, which exempts frontline medical workers’ wages from the state’s cap on increases in annual health care spending. It passed the full House and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.
The House earlier passed a pair of bills intended to give state regulators more oversight of pharmacy benefit managers and protect pharmacies from what critics call their strong arm practices. Despite pleas from the Oregon State Pharmacy Association to pass the bills, they are parked in the Legislature’s Joint Ways and Means Committee.
“Four very well paid PBM lobbyists walked into a high-ranking legislator’s office today to try and kill our PBM bills,” reads a Friday Facebook post from the Oregon State Pharmacy Association, urging public support for the bills.
Nosse acknowledged that opposition to the pharmacy benefit manager bills remains, but he said that if they pass Oregon will have the strongest laws in the country regulating the industry.
A different high profile House bill that would make Naloxone, an opioid overdose-reversing medication, as well as fentanyl testing strips, more widely available is also awaiting a vote in the Senate. The Senate Rules Committee on Friday amended the bill in response to concerns from state Sen. Cedric Hayden, a Fall Creek Republican who participated in the walkout. The amendment only allows minors under 15 to have access to testing strips as part of their substance use treatment plan.
