My next two Town Hall meetings (with Senator Brad Avakian) will take place on April 10, 7pm at St. Vincent Medical Center, Souther Auditorium (East Wing) and April 19, 7pm at Friendly House, 1737 NW 26th (between Savier and Thurman).
ÂÂ
    The legislative session has begun moving at a faster pace since the last MitchMessage. During this period we passed several significant pieces of legislation among the dozens of bills that passed the House. For example, we passed HB 2589, a bill that prohibits members of the legislature from taking a job as a lobbyist until a full legislative session has passed. We frequently heard complaints that legislators moving directly from the legislature to a lobbying job didn't pass the smell test.
ÂÂ
    Perhaps the most significant legislation we passed was a pair of bills that created a rainy day fund for Oregon. This pair of bills (HB 2031 and HB 2707) did not get through the process easily. The leaders of the House and the Senate announced a deal had been reached that included the suspension of the corporate kicker for the coming year to feed the fund, the inclusion of money from each biennial budget to add to the fund, an increase in the corporate minimum income tax, and an increase in the exemption from the estate and inheritance tax from $1 million to $2 million. It looked like a completely done deal. ÂÂ
ÂÂ
    We walked into the House chamber prepared to pass both bills. Suspending the corporate kicker takes 40 votes in the House (20 in the Senate). Increasing the corporate minimum takes 36 votes in the House. I assumed it would be an easy vote since we had a deal on how many Republican and Democratic votes there would be on each bill. As the session began the Republican leadership asked for a brief recess. After several hours of recesses and conferences it turned out that the deal had fallen apart. A key part of the deal had been Republican insistence that the increase in the corporate minimum be a part of the plan. But the bill to implement the corporate minimum caused a firestorm of protests about unintended consequences. Once the nature of the problem was clear it only took about 24 hours to come to resolution. The Republican caucus demanded the removal of the two things they had demanded be put in as a part of the deal. The corporate minimum and the increase in the exemption for the estate tax were stripped out of HB 2031 and both bills passed by an overwhelming majority. I expect we will try to craft a new corporate minimum tax before the end of the session.
ÂÂ
    The other two major bills of the last couple of weeks had a much smoother journey. SB 426 establishes the Oregon Educators' Board, which will oversee the creation of a purchasing pool for health insurance for school employees statewide. It is something many of us have campaigned on for several sessions, because it has the potential to reduce the cost of health insurance for many school districts. The battle turned bitter because currently the Oregon School Board Association provides health insurance to many school districts, and along the way receives millions of dollars in "commissions” for providing that service. OSBA lobbied the individual school boards to lean on their legislators. And some of the school boards responded. For example, I received several e-mails from employees of the Hillsboro School District urging me to vote against the bill. On the day of the vote Wayne Scott, the minority leader, issued a letter listing the OEA contributions to all the House members. I assume that was an attempt to get the message across that our votes were purchased by OEA. But the ultimate vote in the House was 36-20, with five Republicans voting with all the Democrats to pass the bill.
ÂÂ
    And on last Wednesday we passed HB 2700 the contraception equity bill, which requires health insurance companies that provide prescription coverage to cover contraception. The bill also requires hospitals to inform victims of sexual assault the options available for emergency contraception. This was a bill we have not even been able to consider for the last ten years. It came to the floor this time and passed overwhelmingly (49-9). It caused a spontaneous celebration on the floor and in the gallery. Celebrations are not allowed in the House and there was considerable consternation about the breakdown of decorum.
ÂÂ
    We didn't win them all. HB 2170 is a bill to allow the Oregon Liquor Control Commission to grant temporary permits to sell booze for up to six months. This represents a large increase in authority and was fought by several neighborhood associations in Portland and other cities. We had a spirited floor fight on the bill, but it passed 37-21, with 14 Democrats and 7 Republicans voting no. We hope the Senate will pick up the fight, with a chance of turning the bad decision around.
ÂÂ
    Folks have asked me to comment on the state of health care reform. The most important pending bill is HB 2101, the Healthy Kids Act, which I discussed in an earlier message. We have not been able to put the agreement back together on HB 2101 yet, but I expect we will do so. If not, we do have the votes to refer the program to the voters and there is every indication it will pass in a general election. But even when we do get Healthy Kids there will still be 475,000 adults without access to health care. ÂÂ
ÂÂ
    There are three main groups that have been working on creating a system to provide affordable and effective health care to all Oregonians. Ex-Governor John Kitzhaber has formed the Archimedes Movement to help him develop a more rational plan for health care in the United States. The Kitzhaber plan calls for a request that the Federal Government give Oregon the authority to revamp Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance (including the income-tax deductibility of employer-paid health insurance). His plan has been introduced as SB 27 (anybody remember that number?) which would order Governor Kulongoski to seek the Federal waivers and would create a commission to design how the health care system would be organized if the waivers were to be granted.
ÂÂ
    Senator Alan Bates and Senator Ben Westlund have been working very hard for more than a year to create their own plan, which was introduced as SB 329. Bates and Westlund co-chaired an interim Senate commission on health reform, on which they invited me to serve and are currently co-chairs of the Senate Special Committee on Health Care Reform. My Sub-committee on Health Care Access has been meeting with the Special Committee two evenings a week to help (or perhaps obstruct) the process. SB 329 also creates a form of permanent entity (perhaps commission) that would be endowed with broad powers to regulate health care and would be charged with creating the plan for universal access that would be brought back to the legislature for final approval. Senators Bates and Westlund have embarked on a 15 city tour of Oregon explaining what they hope to achieve with SB 329.
ÂÂ
    After a series of meetings (which I attended) Bates, Westlund, and Kitzhaber agreed to merge their two bills and create a common effort to pass them through the Legislature. This agreement was announced at a rally on Wednesday on the steps of the State Capitol. We hope an integrated bill will emerge from the Legislative Counsel's Office very soon.
ÂÂ
    The third body working on the creation of a universal health plan for Oregon is the Oregon Health Policy Commission, of which both Senator Westlund and I are members. The Commission released a draft report and I asked Legislative Counsel to draft a bill based on that report. That bill is HB 3368 (of which I'm the sponsor) and proposes creating a plan including both an individual mandate to purchase affordable health insurance and a kind of employer mandate. HB 3368 also includes a full expansion of the Oregon Health Plan and proposes a form of payroll tax to finance parts of the coverage. The current agreed upon strategy is to give the Bates-Westlund-Kitzhaber combined bill a chance to make to through the Senate, before attempting to move an independent approach through the House.
ÂÂ
    Several other critical health care bills will begin moving through the House very soon. SB 362, which calls for another expansion of the Oregon Prescription Drug Program passed the Senate last week (21-6) and will be coming to my House Health Care Committee. I expect we will pass it easily in the House. HJR 18, the HOPE amendment referral bill, is also ready to begin moving after we finished polling different forms of the constitutional amendment. We passed a bill out of the House Health Care Committee to increase transparency in charges under health insurance. And I expect to have a bill ready to move shortly on reporting of hospital-acquired infections. The pace is really picking up.
ÂÂ
    My health continues to improve, as I get more mobile each day. I really appreciate all of the kind thoughts you have sent along. And keep the e-mail coming; especially e-mail that isn't a part of a mass mail campaign. ÂÂ

State Representative Mitch Greenlick
House District 33
ÂÂ