An Oregon lawmaker wants to make sure legislators and statewide elected officials in Oregon know firsthand what enrolling for benefits through the state’s insurance exchange is like.
Rep. Julie Parrish, R-West Linn, plans to introduce legislation next year that would boot her and her colleagues from the state-provided health plan they have now and send them to Cover Oregon.
Under current law, legislators have access to the same health care coverage other state employees are provided through the Public Employees Benefit Board. All but one lawmaker is enrolled in at least one part of the state insurance package.
“I think we have to recognize that we’re not special and that we have an obligation to not be above the laws that we pass for our constituents,” Parrish said Tuesday. “We need to do this.”
Parrish also wants to move lawmakers into the exchange to get ahead of a 2018 excise tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health care plans.
The Cadillac tax, part of the Affordable Care Act, slaps a 40 percent surcharge on plans that cost more than $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family. If the tax were in place today, only individual coverage under the state insurance plan would be subject to the tax.
But Parrish said the state needs to act now to address the excise tax, and that moving lawmakers into the exchange could ease the shift for the rest of the 51,000 state employees now eligible for state health benefits.
“The fact is with this excise tax that’s coming we have to move in that direction,” Parrish said.
Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, who chairs the House Health Care committee, said he declined state health benefits when he took office but sees value in categorizing lawmakers as state workers.
“I think legislators should be treated like state employees,” Greenlick said. “And I think when we figure out a way to get state employees either into the exchange or into (coordinated care organizations) then the legislators ought to be moved along with state employees.”
Cover Oregon, the state insurance exchange, has been struggling with a dysfunctional website. Applications are now being processed by hand. But Parrish’s bill faces another hurdle.
Oregon law limits the size of a group eligible for the exchange to 50 -- too many for Parrish's plan for Oregon's 90-member Legislature and handful of other elected officials.
But Parrish said she’s undeterred. The limit is set to increase to 100 in 2016, and lawmakers might be able to move that date up.
“We might get processed by hand the way things are going,” Parrish said. “But we should be leading by example.”
-- Christian Gaston
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