Oregon Public Broadcasting

Congressional leaders will continue today rounding up votes for the majority-sponsored health care bills. 

While many questions about the federal bill remain unresolved, Oregon's health care structure is already primed for potential changes. April Baer reports.

Health care advocates say Oregon is in a good position if Congress moves ahead with plans for health care exchanges and a public option.

Jeanene Smith is the Administrator of the Oregon Health Policy Board.

She says Oregon is  ahead of the curve, with fourteen managed care plans that offer low-cost options for  Medicaid's working poor. But she says Oregon could still use more federal help.

Jeanene Smith: "There are 600,000 uninsured Oregonians, and that was before the economic downturn."

The state's Health Policy Board has been working alongside –sometimes ahead of - the federal health care debate. It's laying plans for a state insurance exchange, to create a marketplace for private plans – and a public option, if one is created.

Smith says other state coverage expansions will make it possible for Oregon to pay less for new federal programs. Structured properly, she says, they could be take advantage of Medicaid funding mechanisms.

Jeanene Smith: "For every dollar spent on Medicaid in Oregon, 40 cents of that is state dollars, 60 cents is fed dollars. For some categories of kids it's even better, we only have to put up 30 cents, and they put up seventy cents."

Congress is contemplating a health care measure that would allow states to opt out of a public option, but it's not clear how that would work.

It might be a decision for the Governor and the Legislature, or it could even go to the voters. But Smith noted there's strong interest in the state in seeing what a public plan could do.