A group of academic researchers and key individuals associated with the OHP organized themselves as the Oregon Health Study Group to take advantage of this opportunity. A study population was established from the reservation list, including approximately 30,000 individuals who were selected and roughly 45,000 who were not.
Is it too early to judge Oregon's drug reform experiment?
She and other advocates say it's far too early to make any judgments about Oregon's experiment. The metrics to watch over the coming years, she says, is how well Measure 110 expands access to detox and treatment services statewide. "There are so many centers across our state that don't just need investments, they've been starved," she says.
How will measure 110 affect drug cases in Oregon?
The Oregon Criminal Justice Commission estimates that Measure 110 will reduce those disparities and result, overall, in about 4,000 fewer Oregonians a year getting convicted of felony or misdemeanor possession of illegal drugs.
Is Oregon’s health care system more generous than other states?
It appears the safety net may be slightly more generous in Oregon, although other measures of the health care system like the share of admissions in public hospitals and the physician-to-population ratio are quite similar to the national average (Allen et al. 2010).
Is Oregon's drug decriminalization working?
Oregon's Pioneering Drug Decriminalization Experiment Is Now Facing The Hard Test Oregon's bold move to decriminalize small amounts of all hard drugs and expand treatment is now meeting the reality of implementation as the treatment community is divided over the way forward. Mike Marshall is the co-founder and director of Oregon Recovers.
What was the Oregon health insurance Experiment?
The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment is a landmark study of the effect of expanding public health insurance on health care use, health outcomes, financial strain, and well-being of low-income adults. It uses an innovative randomized controlled design to evaluate the impact of Medicaid in the United States.
What the Oregon health Study can tell us about expanding Medicaid?
Our analysis of enrollment into this program found that people who signed up for the waiting list and enrolled in the Oregon Medicaid program were likely to have worse health than those who did not. However, actual enrollment was fairly low, partly because many applicants did not meet eligibility standards.
Who funds the Oregon Health Plan?
Overall, the federal government pays for the lion's share of the Oregon Health Plan budget. In the 2017-19 budget period, federal funds are expected to cover about 75 percent of OHP, while Oregon contributes the remaining 25 percent.
Is the Oregon Health Plan Obamacare?
Oregon's 4.1 million residents get their health insurance through their employer, the private individual market, Affordable Care Act (ACA; also known as Obamacare) plans, Medicare and the Oregon Health Plan (OHP), which combines Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
What fraction of those who were offered Medicaid coverage through the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment successfully enrolled?
If individuals in a selected household submitted the appropriate paperwork within 45 days after the state mailed them an application and demonstrated that they met the eligibility requirements, they were enrolled in OHP Standard. About 30% of selected individuals successfully enrolled.
Which of the following was a main finding of the Oregon Medicaid experiment?
The results confirm that Medicaid coverage increased overall health care utilization, improved self-reported health, and reduced financial strain; these findings are consistent with previously published results based on mail surveys conducted approximately 1 year after the lottery.
When was OHP created?
High ambitions The Oregon Health Plan was created in 1989 to expand coverage to some of the 400 000 citizens who at the time had no health insur- ance.
Who owns Oregon Health share?
Health Share of Oregon is governed by a Board of Directors that includes individuals from our eleven founding member organizations—including health systems, health plans, counties, and social service agencies serving OHP members in Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington Counties—the community at large, physical, ...
Is the Oregon Health Plan Medicaid?
The Oregon Health Plan (OHP) is Oregon's Medicaid program. There are several health care programs available for low-income Oregonians through OHP.
What is Obamacare called in Oregon?
Health Insurance Marketplace® in Oregon If you live in Oregon, you’ll use HealthCare.gov to apply and enroll. For information on resources available in your state, visit the Oregon Health Insurance Marketplace® website.
Does Oregon have free HealthCare?
Oregon Health Plan (OHP) It provides free coverage for people in Oregon who meet eligibility criteria. Coverage includes doctor visits, hospital care, mental health services, dental, and some vision care.
How much does the Oregon Health Plan cost per month?
Find Cheap Health Insurance Quotes in Connecticut Currently insured? For 2022, the average cost of health insurance in Oregon across all plan tiers is $397 per month, which is 7% cheaper than for 2021.
Who are the principal investigators of Medicaid expansion in Oregon?
In a series of ongoing evaluations, principal investigators Katherine Baicker and Amy Finkelstein, along with other researchers, examine the effects of a Medicaid expansion in Oregon on a wide range of outcomes.
How many people were in the OHP standard in 2008?
The state conducted extensive outreach. Of the about 75,000 individuals who signed up, the lottery randomly selected about 30,000 winners between March and September 2008. These selected individuals comprised the treatment group. Those who filled out an application that demonstrated their eligibility within 45 days of winning the lottery 1 (about 30 percent of the winners) were enrolled in OHP Standard. Those who were not selected by the lottery formed the control group.
Why did Medicaid close in 2004?
In 2004, the state closed the program to new enrollees because of budgetary limits. Expanding Medicaid to the uninsured increased health-care use, diminished financial strain, and reduced depression. Photo: Shutterstock.com.
How much did Medicaid reduce depression?
Medicaid reduced rates of depression by 9 percentage points (a 31 percent decrease) and increased the likelihood of self-reporting health as good, very good, or excellent (as opposed to fair or poor) by 13 percentage points (a 24 percent increase).
Does Medicaid increase outpatient visits?
Survey results indicated that Medicaid also increased outpatient visits and prescription drug use. Medicaid increased the use of recommended preventive care services as well. For example, Medicaid more than doubled the likelihood that women over age forty had mammograms.
Scope of Project
Additional information about this study is available on www.nber.org/oregon.
Methodology
The original lottery list provided by the state contained 100,600 records of persons who signed up for the lottery.
Version (s)
2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
Who argued that Oregonians lacked access to basic health services?
In the legislature’s deliberations in 1987-1990, rather than championing transplants, then-state senator Kitzhaber argued persuasively that thousands of low-income Oregonians lacked access to even basic health services, much less access to transplants.
What is the second phase of the Oregon Health Plan?
This second phase of the Oregon Health Plan, OHP2 for short, began in 2003. The program divided the plan into two: OHP Plus for those who would have been automatically Medicare eligible, and OHP Standard for those “expansion” populations not generally covered under traditional programs. Uninsured individuals and families who relied on state Medicaid were given a choice of reenrolling, and many chose not to. Enrollments dropped steeply, crashing from 104,000 in 2002 to 49,000 in the “Medicaid expansion program,” which aimed to cover the poorest. Rather than share the cost, people were willing to do without health care at all. Few policymakers were expecting this result. They did not realize how price-sensitive purchasing health care could be for a family living close to the bone. Or how many families would choose to go without and spend their money on other needs or wants. All told, by 2007 the OHP had lost 75 percent of its enrollment [22]. It was time for new reforms.
When did Oregon start a Medicaid priority list?
That morning in 1990 , many Oregonians got their first look at a priorities list of about 2,000 procedures, also known as the “first list” (or later as “the first list, quickly dumped” [2]). Other lists followed. The state was attempting to decide which procedures its Medicaid program should cover.
Why is Oregon important to health policy?
The importance of the list in the annals of American health policy is that Oregon tried to develop a transparent process for prioritizing medical services through its laws and regulations. That’s the real impact. Rather than relying on undisclosed private decisions by individuals or insurers, Oregon developed a public process.
Is Oregon rationing public?
Rather than relying on undisclosed private decisions by individuals or insurers, Oregon developed a public process. A look back at the impetus for the state’s rationing experiment is helpful. In 1987, Coby Howard’s case shocked the state. He was a 7-year-old boy on Medicaid who needed a bone marrow transplant, which was no longer covered under ...
Who advocated a state sales tax for health care?
Successive administrations pushed for more health reforms to iron out these disparities and searched for more funding. Governor Barbara K. Roberts (1991-1995) advocated a state sales tax for health care. This proved unpopular with voters [20], who denied her a second term.
Did health policy makers want to include more people?
Health policy makers had hoped to include more people. Yet, instead of expanding to cover the “next Coby,” legislators realized they might be making “more Cobys” by covering fewer services. They hoped to reduce coverage but still expand the number of people covered for a minimum or basic level of health care.
Who is the new chair of Oregon's Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission?
A key person to help lead Oregon through this rocky transition is 36-year-old old Tony Vezina, who founded 4th Dimension in Portland, the state's first youth-oriented recovery program. He's also the new chair of Oregon's Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission, which is tasked with improving treatment services.
What would decriminalization do to the state of Oregon?
Decriminalization would ease racial disparities in drug arrests. A key selling point to Oregon voters was that decriminalization would significantly reduce or even eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in convictions and arrests. Blacks make up just over 2% of Oregon's population.
What is the penalty for overdose in Oregon?
Oregonians overwhelmingly passed Measure 110 that makes possession of small amounts of cocaine, heroin, LSD and methamphetamine, among other drugs, punishable by a civil citation — akin to a parking ticket — and a $100 fine.
Is possession of hard drugs a felony in Oregon?
The Oregon Legislature in 2017 had already made possession of small amounts of hard drugs here a misdemeanor, not a felony. But some say full decriminalization has had a demoralizing effect on that work.
What's the issue?
One of the principal strategies contained in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to achieve near-universal health insurance coverage is expansion of eligibility for the Medicaid program. There has been much debate about whether expansion of the Medicaid program should be used to extend health care benefits to the low-income uninsured.
What's the background?
Medicaid, established under Title XIX of the Social Security Act (SSA), is the jointly financed federal and state program that provides comprehensive health insurance coverage to many of the poorest Americans.
What's the experiment?
After a multiyear freeze on new enrollment, Oregon officials determined in early 2008 that they had sufficient resources to reopen enrollment in the OHP Standard. Yet they also expected demand to be greater than the number of slots permitted by the new funding.
What's The Debate?
A great deal of controversy exists about reducing the number of uninsured people in the United States through Medicaid expansion. Advocates for Medicaid point to evidence showing that Medicaid has been an essential part of the nation's safety net, providing access to comprehensive health care for the nation's most vulnerable.
What's next?
As ACA implementation continues, the findings of the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment can be useful to other states to help in estimating the impacts of Medicaid expansion on their budgets, designing programs to avoid some of the pitfalls experienced in Oregon such as enrollment strategies and benefit design, working with providers to meet increased demands for services, and developing broader strategies to improve the health status of enrollees..
Resources
Heidi Allen, Katherine Baicker, Amy Finkelstein, Sarah Taubman, Bill J. Wright, and the Oregon Health Study Group, "What the Oregon Health Study Can Tell Us about Expanding Medicaid," Health Affairs 29, no. 8 (2010): 1498-506.
About Health Policy Briefs
Health Policy Briefs are produced under a partnership of Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
