Political Action Update

Joe Dwan, MS, RRT, PACT co-chair

Oregon
July 2002
Remember to VOTE this fall, and tell them you’re a respiratory therapist who supports healthcare!

OREGON: Governor Kitzhaber has called a series of special legislative sessions to deal with the budget shortfalls that have incurred due to revenue shortfalls. The impact on healthcare, and in particular the Oregon Health Plan, is unclear. The legislature can make selective cuts and the Governor has threatened across the board cuts. Who knows what the final version will be???

Elections: After the redistricting and the Oregon Supreme Court’s decision to throw-out the voter-approved term limits, some incumbents decided to seek re-election, others, such as Randy Miller (R, Lake Oswego) chose to switch from the Senate to the House. The May Primary resulted in no incumbent Senator was defeated by a Primary challenger. In the House, four incumbents lost re-election. Two were forced by redistricting, to run against other incumbents (Al King & Cedric Hayden, from Lane County). The fall elections in the Oregon Senate will determine who controls the Senate, Republicans or Democrats.

National: OSRC President Janet Holloway and myself attended an AARC sponsored Political Action meeting in Washington, DC on April 13-16. Maybe you saw our picture on the cover of the May AARC Times! The AARC prepared all 54 PACT people from many states, so we could meet with our Congressmen/women. Janet & I met with Senator Gordon Smith’s staff, Jake Ewart; Representative Peter Defazio’s staff, Ven Neraalla, Representative Darlene Hooley’s staff, Dillion Shea, and both Senator Ron Wyden and his staff, Stephanie Kennan. We were successful in our goal of obtaining Oregon’s Congressmen/women’s support for substituting respiratory therapists in home visits, rather than a nurse or PT.

The AARC’s goal of becoming politically active and influencing political decisions, which effect our profession, has begun. This first, small step will require patience and persistence to achieve success in obtaining reimbursement for RTs in the home. Several of our representatives told Janet & myself the proposed AARC language would not stand alone as a bill. But it would be logical as an amendment to an existing bill related to Medicare reform, one of which is coming up in August. This is our most likely method for success.

Thank you all for writing emails to your Congressmen/women!!! The AARC said over 1000 letters were generated nationwide via the “Capital Connection” on aarc.org. Oregon leads the nation with 89 letters sent Jan-April!!! Without your ‘grassroots’ support, Janet & I would not have been as successful in Washington! Senator Smith’s aid called me and said, “We’ve received 87 emails from respiratory therapists in Oregon… This certainly is an issue that your group feels is important”. I know that many, if not all, RTs who wrote to Senator Smith have received letters thanking them for their input (after all, it is an election year).

Janet & I have been following up with the staff we met with to promote RT in the home. We may call upon you again to write email letters, now that we see we can be heard in Washington on issues that affect your practice as a respiratory therapist. This is the value of membership in the AARC and OSRC.

Other News: Health and Human Services has released Bioterrorism funding reports by states. Oregon will receive allocations totaling $12,616,956 from the CDC Bioterrorism funds and $14,192,426 from the HRSA Hospital funds. The funds are to enhance hospital preparedness, specifically to expand capacity of hospitals and outpatient facilities to confront large-scale incidents, to improve capabilities to control infections, to train health care professionals in recognition of these infections, and to improve infrastructure.

Reports on Medicaid and the uninsured are now available: “What Works and What More Can Be Done?” Details at www.kff.org/content/2002/20020611. State health facts are also available on-line at http://statehealthfacts.kff.org.