PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

This blog could signal the opening of one of the departments I run with a free hand to make the management decisions I feel need to be made – the Department of Pet Peeves.

But this time, I prefer to give the issue standing on its own.

It deals with a classic example of when state laws are ignored because legislators and advocates – either or both – want them to be ignored. Or, if not totally ignored, to be rendered useless.

One of the best examples, for me, revolves around health insurance issues. Know this – I was a health insurance lobbyist for about 25 years, so I carry a substantial bias.

There is an existing state law that requires a cost-benefit study before – yes, before – the legislature can enact any new health insurance mandate.

Here is a text of the law in ORS 171.875:

The law “requires that every proposed legislative measure containing health insurance coverage mandates to be accompanied by a report that assesses both the social and financial effects of the coverage. Areas that must be addressed in this report include the following:

• “The extent to which treatment or service will be used in Oregon;
• “The extent of coverage already available in Oregon;
• “The proportion of Oregonians who already have such coverage;
• “The extent to which lack of coverage results in financial hardship in Oregon;
• “Evidence of medical need in Oregon for the proposed treatment or services; and
• “The financial effect of the proposed measure, including the increase/decrease of costs of treatment, the extent to which coverage will increase treatment, the extent to which mandated treatment is expected to be a substitute for more expensive treatment, the impact on administrative expenses of the insurer and premiums/administrative expenses of policyholders and the overall impact on total cost of health care.”

This is a law that I found was seldom enforced. And, if it was enforced, few of those involved saw the reports to verify the enforcement.

Instead, what ruled the day was that legislators and advocates believed that enacting a mandate was the most important objective – more important than a state law requiring the cost-benefit study before doing so.

I remember one case that stood out more than many of the rest. I cannot remember for sure, but it was either a mandate to require health insurance companies to contract with a specific hospital in Portland – one that, in fact, no longer exists – or it was a mandate to require insurers to contract with every podiatrist in the state.

With other health insurance lobbyists, I tried to fight off the mandate as not being in the best interest of Oregonians, either from a medical treatment standpoints or from a financial perspectives.

Here was the rub. The lobbyist for the special hospital or the podiatrists – he was one and the same — actually drafted the report that was meant to comply with ORS 171.175. It was not drafted by a legislative staff member; it was drafted by the lobbyist himself.

That was deemed to be compliance with a law that should have held more standing. After all, law is the law – or it is supposed to be so. But, for me, it stood out as a perversion of the law.

There was good news in the end. Health insurance lobbyists managed to kill the mandate despite the superficial cost-benefit analysis.

My point is that legislators, if they pass a law, ought to be required to live within both the letter and the spirit of the law. If not, why have the law in the first place. In health insurance, some mandates are worth implementing, but only after thoughtful and careful review, not just because the politics favors it.