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Health Authority Budget Relies On Second Year Cost Savings

Bryan Buckalew, OPB News
June 14, 2011

SALEM, Ore. - The Oregon Senate passed a health care budget Tuesday that relies on the state implementing cost-cutting measures next year. The Oregon Health Authority oversees health care for low-income Oregonians and the disabled.

The agency's spending plan amounts to a total of $11.9 billion over the next two years. Budget writers anticipate few major cuts over the next twelve months.

But in the second year, the spending plan assumes more than $239 million in savings from streamlining health care services.

Democratic Senator Alan Bates sponsored the bill in the Senate.

Alan Bates: "If we can't achieve those savings, then we'll have to do what many other states have done, which is dis-enrolling people from Medicaid, or making huge cuts to physicians and hospitals that care for these patients, which means some people will walk away from the program, and we'll lose our provider base."

Bates says he's fairly confident Oregon can revamp its health care delivery system within the next year.

But critics in the Oregon Senate expressed doubt in the state's ability to streamline health care costs so quickly.

The Health Authority budget now moves to the House.

On the Web:

Proposed budget for Oregon Health Authority:

http://www.leg.state.or.us/11reg/measures/sb5500.dir/sb5529.a.html

Oregon Health Authority:

http://www.oregon.gov/OHA/