A bill creating a housing program for people who are homeless and disabled is headed to Gov. Brown along with a slurry of other health policy bills after Senate Democrats broke a Republican logjam in the Senate late Wednesday afternoon.
The “general assistance” bill had been a perennial concern of anti-poverty advocates year after year until it finally hit the zeitgeist this year, passing both the House and Senate unanimously, as a way to directly improve the lives of individuals with medical issues, especially mental illness, living on the streets.
“I think there’s no question that the Speaker [Tina Kotek, D-Portland] and [Rep. Alissa] Keny-Guyer were the champions of the bill,” said advocate John Mullin of the Oregon Law Center, who also credited the work of Rep. Duane Stark, R-Central Point, to make it a bipartisan issue.
“I don’t know why it ever fell by the wayside,” Stark told The Lund Report, noting a similar program was cut in 2003. Mullin has been fighting to restore it ever since. “The day I heard about it last session, I was excited. … I just think it took new voices joining together on it.”
The program provides a housing voucher for 200 individuals at a time as they await approval for federal disability. The state upfronts $1.7 million, but should recoup most of this money from the federal government once it’s approved. The money that’s recouped is intended to help other people.
Mullin said the bill was helped by its narrowed focus -- rather than just provide people with cash to those awaiting disability approval, a workgroup from 2014 decided a program that targeted a specific dire need -- housing for the homeless -- would net much wider public support.
Stark told the budget committee that fellow Republicans such as Rep. Knute Buehler, R-Bend, also supported the program once an expensive and unnecessary study into the problem was dropped from the bill. “We already know what works. We don’t need to study it,” he said. “John Mullin took the study out; the Republicans said, ‘Thanks for listening to us, we support it now.’”
Senate Republicans ended their logjam after Senate Democrats agreed to sacrifice bills they opposed such as one requiring tobacco retailers to get licensed by the state, as well as a House measure to close a loophole in the criminal background check for gun buyers.
Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, was dejected to lose her chief policy bill, which would have made Oregon one of the last states to license tobacco outlets, but one of the first to license e-cigarette shops. Read a separate story here.
Besides the general assistance bill, Brown also was asked unanimously to approve House Bill 4071, which establishes a health insurance assistance program for impoverished Pacific Islanders, and FamilyCare received unanimous Senate approval for its bill to end future clawbacks of their payments from the Oregon Health Authority.
Despite unanimous House support, opposition from the Health Authority nearly killed that bill, House Bill 4107. Sen. A lan Bates, D-Ashland, brokered a last-minute deal that worked out the bill’s language so the state agency could agree.
HB 4107 applies only to 2016 contracts and beyond, and allows the Oregon Health Authority to obey any directives from the federal government. Last summer, the Health Authority made the controversial decision to call back $100 million it had given to seven CCOs; more than half of that money was ordered back from FamilyCare, although the Portland-area CCO has not yet agreed to return the money.
After a very difficult session, House Bill 4071 provided a kumbaya moment for lawmakers, with several senators given floor speeches in support of Oregon residents from the Pacific island chains that are part of the Compact of Free Association.
This group of people struggled in obscurity for 20 years, after the federal government took away their ability to receive Medicaid. People who’d otherwise qualify for the Oregon Health Plan will now be able to get free health insurance on the exchange.
“It really will make their lives better,” said Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day.
The Basic Health Plan bill also survived, but with the support of just three Republicans -- Sen. Brian Boquist of McMinnville, Rep. Vic Gilliam of Silverton and Rep. Andy Olson of Albany.
House Bill 4017 gives the Department of Consumer & Business Services the authority to draw up plans for insurance waivers and update data for implementing the Basic Health Plan insurance regulations.
The new data could allow the Legislature to approve a new set of health plans that provide coverage to an estimated 15,000 uninsured legal immigrants and provide much more affordable coverage for 85,000 working-class adults.
The health plans would be sold on the insurance marketplace, but could either be offered through private insurance carriers or the coordinated care organizations set up to handle Medicaid. In order to get more favorable rates from hospitals and other providers, the health plans would agree to abide by the state’s coordinated care model and cap inflation.
