Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon’s Ron Wyden and other members of the Senate Finance Committee are trying to find a way to finance changes in  health care policy before Congress recesses in August.

The business community has an avid interest in both the financial and structural changes that may be underway. April Baer reports.

It’s tough to know exactly what’s going on in Washington right now, with new amendments moving like hotcakes.

The bakers at Portland’s Grand Central Bakery have been keeping an eye on what’s cooking in Congress. The local business has grown through three decades.

Between its Oregon and Washington operations, the company employs about 240 people.

And these people, from the guy wheeling big drums of bread dough around in the back room, to the clerks smiling behind the counter, all have health insurance.

Piper Davis is Grand Central’s co-owner and cuisine director. She says it's a challenge staying on top of spiraling health care costs, and the company is keenly interested in what can be done about to cover the uninsured.

Piper Davis  “I’ve been very discouraged in trying to figure out who’s standing where on the issue of taxing health benefits. For our employees, that would be devastating, one of the big incentives to get people to commit to being on the plan in the first place is their deduction is pre-tax. For a $12-an-hour employee to have to be taxed on their health insurance benefit is really unjust and regressive.”

Davis also says the business has added many previously uninsured workers who join the company plan, and then promptly start taking care of long-standing medical issues. That gets spendy, and it’s why Davis is rooting for a public option to care for the uninsured.

But there are as many industry takes on health care as there are industries in Oregon, some with a very different view of the public option.

Betsy Earls:   “I think our biggest priority is maintaining the vibrancy of our health insurance market.”

Betsy Earls is Vice President and Counsel at Associated Oregon Industries.

AOI represents some of the biggest employers in the state. It has  flexed its muscles in health affairs for years, and has successfully lobbied against employer mandates at the state level.

Earls says AOI's members are  not happy about the idea of a new government-run health plan as potential competitor to private sector options. 

AOI also opposes Senator Ron Wyden’s plan to revoke tax exemptions on the benefits employers buy for workers. So what changes could the organization support?

Betsy Earls:   “You know it’s hard to say at this point. I think what we support generally speaking is an approach that emphasizes prevention and wellness, and looks at rationing and things like that only after we -- as much as we can -- emphasize prevention, on the front end.”

Earls didn’t offer anything more specific.

At the micro level, there are tens of thousands of small businesses in Oregon, and self-employed people who have to buy their own insurance with relatively few cost savings. Many say they’re painfully aware of being outgunned by larger players.

Ann Murray:  “Honestly, it feels like drug manufacturers have so much clout in Washington.”

Ann Murray is a pharmacist and member of the Heppner Chamber of Commerce. She was part of a lobbying effort this year to get state government to make prescription drug programs more responsive to health care systems in rural Oregon. 

She says it’s incredibly important for lawmakers to have an eye out for unintended consequences, if they’re aiming for a broad transformation of such a complex system.