More in Oregon lack health insurance

SALEM, Ore. – Amid a shrinking Oregon Health Plan, Congress’ cuts in Medicaid funding and high unemployment, the number of Oregonians who lack health insurance has risen to 613,000, according to a study released Monday.

Health care activists said at a news conference that the result is a “crisis” in which many uninsured adults cannot afford preventative care or prescription drugs and end up seeking care in hospital emergency rooms.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which focuses on improving health care through grants, studied government census and Centers for Disease Control Statistics and found that 19 percent of working adults in Oregon don’t have health insurance, the ninth-highest level in the nation.

The jump in uninsured Oregonians is “huge,” according to Maribeth Healey of Oregonians for Health Security. The number of uninsured Oregonians increased by nearly 200,000 from 2002 to the 2004 census, Healey said.

Vern Smith, 51, is one example of the one in five Oregonians who are uninsured.

Smith suffered from multiple chronic health problems, including diabetes and high cholesterol, which made him unable to work.

He and his wife were on the Oregon Health Plan, but when she got a job the couple became ineligible, even though her work didn’t offer her insurance and they still couldn’t afford to purchase it.

In March, Smith suffered a heart attack that sent him to the emergency room to get three stints in his heart. The bill was $100,000, which he said they cannot afford.

“It’s time for the Legislature to stand up for Oregonians like me,” Smith said at the press conference.

But with a tight budget, the Legislature has limited options this session to improve access to health insurance.

Neither Gov. Ted Kulongoski nor the Legislature’s budget-writers are proposing any additional money for the Oregon Health Plan, the state-sponsored plan for those who don’t qualify for Medicaid.

Still, one lawmaker is determined to find solutions.

Sen. Ben Westlund, R-Tumalo, joined Smith at the press conference, along with health care workers and advocates, and called the situation a “crisis.”

“This is insanity … it has got to stop,” Westlund said.

Westlund said the cost of uninsured patients going to the emergency room – where by law they cannot be refused treatment – gets passed on to all Oregonians in terms of higher health care costs.