Sixes

Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio will hold a town hall at the Port Orford City Hall on Thursday, August 13th.

Should you attend, please speak up and ask the congressman a question. Here are some possible talking points from which you might formulate your question:

We support comprehensive health reform that would accomplish the following:

• Every U.S. resident will have access to a clearly defined set of essential health services.
• The Triple Aim will drive the design of the health care system, in that the health system demonstrates:
  • Improvement in the overall health of the defined population,
  • Reduced per-capita costs, and
  • Improvement in the individual patient experience in terms of clinical outcomes, patient safety and patient satisfaction.
• The business models within our health system must realign financial incentives to make them consistent with the Triple Aim. On example would be to look at eliminating fee-for-service billing, and instead pay providers to keep people healthy and out of the hospital.
• Prevention, health education, and wellness services will be provided and promoted.
• Disparities in access to an essential benefits package and subsequently health outcomes between people of different socioeconomic and demographic groups is not acceptable and therefore should be eliminated.
• The delivery system must be transformed to provide greater access to effective primary care and chronic disease management, while specialty care must be more effectively linked and integrated with primary care providers.
• Electronic Health Records should be developed and implemented to promote and support evidence based decisions and improved efficiency of health care delivery.
• We must include development of a competitive, publicly-funded insurance option that gives Americans affordable and fair choice in how their insurance is purchased.
• We must explicitly acknowledge that public resources are finite. Therefore, public funds must be focused on providing the services which will cause the greatest improvement in population health. Many people may be able to purchase services that are more than those that are provided as part of the essential benefit package available to all residents and they should be allowed to do so. This is true of Medicare where close to 80% of Medicare beneficiaries have some type of supplemental coverage on top of their traditional Medicare benefit. However, the core benefit must provide a sufficient floor of essential benefits so that buying additional services is not absolutely necessary in order to achieve consistent positive health outcomes.

Health care is on everyone's mind. Health insurance costs, quality of care, access in our communities - there are many concerns which affect us all. While the health care system is broken, there’s currently a process in place to fix it.

Oregon leaders are developing a proposal for quality, affordable health care for Oregonians. But what does that mean for you?

Join us at a community near you for an important discussion on health care in Oregon. These events are free and open to the public. Your input will help shape the future of health care in our state. Everyone’s voice matters:

• people with or without health care
• employers
• seniors
• people with disabilities

You can also get involved in the conversation online at a new website on health reform in Oregon. Share your views at www.talkhealthreform.org.

Brought to you on behalf of the Oregon Health Fund Board by:

Save the Date: Wednesday, May 23rd

With SB 27 – the Oregon Better Health Act – now in Joint Ways & Means Committee, we need to maintain our momentum to win.

Join us for a day at the Oregon Capitol and talk to you legislators about SB 27.

We'll help you get prepared. You'll get talking points and lunch!

Sign-Up & Carpool
If you can attend this event, please email (matt@wecandobetter.org) or call (503-709-8574) Matt Webber.

Note that the start time below is when we need to meet in Salem. We'll follow up with more details.

Come help us kick off the beginning of the legislative process at our press conference announcing that our bill, the Oregon Better Health Act, is on it's way to legislative council.

Please help us keep track of how many people are coming by using the sign-up link located below the location information at the bottom of this page.

Also, if you already have a We Can Do Better t-shirt, please wear it. (Call Jan, 503-537-0590, to get a t-shirt and connect with others who want to carpool.)