Oregon's top health care union launches 5 ballot measures targeting hospital ... - OregonLive.com

A union representing health care workers on Monday filed five ballot measures with the Secretary of State's office targeting hospital pricing, executive salary and transparency.

Local 49 of the Service Employees International Union filed the measures for the November 2014 ballot after years of trying to make progress in the Legislature, and getting "roughly bupkis," says Felisa Hagins, the local's political director. The measures will be pursued in a campaign called "Act Now for a Healthy Oregon."

Hagins said the union hopes to gather 24,000 signatures for each measure starting this November, once the state issues ballot titles. She isn't sure whether this campaign will help the union's bargaining position with hospitals over their labor contracts, but "I think it definitely will show the public what health care workers are talking about. And it's not just about them, it's about the patients and the communities they serve."

The ballot measures cover separate topics:

• Executive compensation caps limiting hospital chief executive salary to 15 times the salary of the lowest­-paid employee


• Requirement for hospitals to spend a minimum of 5 percent of service costs on charity care for low-income patients


• Requirement for hospitals to publicly post their typical costs for common procedures.


• Price limits for larger hospitals.


• Requirement for public posting of quality of care data by hospitals.

Late last year a review of state records showed hospital charity care spending for the needy had plummeted during the recession between 2009 and 2011. They dropped to 4.4 percent of patient costs on average, even as poverty and homelessness was growing.

Meanwhile, another report showed that inflation in Oregon health care pricing averaged 7.7 percent, the highest in the nation between 2008 and 2010.

But hospitals faced lower profits in 2012, according to a state report earlier this year. In 2012, the number of hospitals taking a loss grew to 24, of whom eight faced losses of 5 percent or more, according to the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health. More recently, the number of hospitals taking loss grew again, according to the association's analysis of state records.

Andy Davidson, CEO of that association, said Monday he didn't yet have specifics on the SEIU measures.

"Until we see specific ballot titles and ballot language, we can't comment on any specifics," he said. "What we can say is that during this unprecedented time of transformation across the healthcare field in Oregon, old school tactics do little to bring the field together collaboratively. Instead, political efforts such as this only serve to divide and distract all of us at the very time we are working together to achieve the state's vision of a transformed healthcare delivery system."

-- Nick Budnick