There’s no sound reason for decimating Medicaid

Voters are facing something unusual Jan. 23 — a referendum challenging a $320 million health care assessment approved by the 2017 Legislature. It’s on the ballot as Measure 101, with a yes vote in support and no vote in opposition.

When petitioners succeed in forcing a referendum, it is normally, though not always, placed on a November ballot. This one was moved up to allow the 2018 Legislature, convening Feb. 1 for a statutorily limited 35-day session, time to address the massive hole rejection would carve in the state’s already implemented 2017-19 budget.

Under challenge are a 1.5 percent tax on health care insurance and a boost in the existing 5.3 percent assessment on hospital revenue to 6.0 percent. They were part of a $550 million package requiring 60 percent approval in both chambers, forcing majority Democrats to draw at Republican support in each.

The package would qualify Oregon for a $960 million federal match, thus closing an almost $1.3 billion gap in its Medicaid program. And Medicaid serves about 1 million of Oregon’s 4 million residents, including 400,000 children, while covering almost half of all Oregon births.

The measure enjoys backing from virtually every entity subject to the added cost, including McMinnville’s Willamette Valley Medical Center. The pain is eased for insurance carriers because they can pass the expense along at an average cost of $5 a month, and for hospitals because it would be catastrophic if high-cost emergency room care once again became the sole option for the indigent.

The uninsured indigent once accounted for 10 percent of ER traffic at Willamette Valley. An Oregon Medicaid expansion piggybacking on the federal Affordable Care Act served to cut that figure to 1 percent, and the facility is in no mood to forfeit a 10-fold improvement.

Measure 101 faces opposition from Republican Sal Esquivel of Medford, even though he provided the deciding yes vote in the House. A social issues conservative, he’s switched sides for fear money would be used to fund abortions or care for the undocumented.

Esquivel joined fellow House Republicans Julie Parrish and Cedric Hayden in sponsoring the referendum. At last report, however, they were trailing by 32 points in polling (2.5 to 1) and $1.7 million in fundraising (6.5 to 1).

While the yes campaign has garnered fervent advocacy and financial support from the labor movement and health care community, the no campaign has been subsisting largely on donations from longstanding tax foes, such as Stimson Lumber CEO Andrew Miller.

Parrish believes a measure that took months of hearings, haggling and compromise in the 2017 regular session, in order to achieve a pair of super-majorities, is so flawed lawmakers should start over in this year’s brief session. One opposition newspaper thinks the measure falls short by failing to spread the burden among all Oregonians, another by surreptitiously spreading the burden to “virtually all Oregonians.”

The Pamplin newspaper group made a better case when it argued approval “allows the democratic process to work,” “gives lawmakers a year to monitor the new financing package,” “avoids another divisive distraction” and “ensures that our state’s most vulnerable residents get quality health care.” We concur.