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.

The Oregon Legislature has gone down a familiar path again to fund health care in Oregon.

By passing House Bill 2010 and sending it on to Governor Kate Brown for her signature, the Legislature is using the approach to tax major Oregon hospitals and health insurers as a way, first and foremost, to garner federal matching funds under Medicaid.

Is it a good idea to do so?

If I was in the Legislature – perish the thought, you may add – I probably would vote for the approach, too. Money for health care is as important today as it always has been and, if not for the legal funding gambit to increase Medicaid, health care – including for low-income Oregonians – would tend to fall behind K-12 and other general fund users.

But, I would vote for the funding deal only with several provisos, all of which were ingrained in me when I represented hospitals and insurers in Salem during the times when the funding approach first existed. It started in 2003 and has continued to this day.

The provisos are these:

1. AVOID SUPPLANTING: I would make sure, insofar as it is possible to do so, that the “new money” – including hospital and insurer taxes and federal matching funds – actually would be directed to health care programs.

I write “insofar as possible” because it is easy for the new money to become just that – “new money” without restrictions. At the decision of members of the Joint Ways and Means Committee, the money can be treated simply as more “general fund” money available to be used for anything.

Even if, for example, there is a clause in the funding approach that money be reserved for health care, budget managers can honor that agreement, but take other general fund money out from behind and re-direct that money elsewhere, often to K-12 education.

In budget lingo, it’s called “supplanting.”

I first saw this used when, a number of years ago, the State of Oregon received “tobacco settlement” money – millions of dollars in cash from tobacco companies under a court order.

The money was supposed to help fund efforts to limit tobacco use on the basis of health concerns. That occurred, but so did supplanting – taking general funds away that had been used for anti-tobacco programs in the past.

Based on my sources at the Capitol, my understanding this time around, in the case of House Bill 2010, there is no specific language that assures new money goes to health care programs, but one of the key Ways and Means members, one who has credibility on this issue in the past, has provided oral assurances that the “new money will fund new health care.”

The key member is Senator Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, who has a solid track record of integrity and being above-board in any state budget negotiations. She has always been good to her word.

2. ASSURE RESULTS: When the new money arrives to fund expanded health care programs, steps should be taken to require results.

What do I mean by this? Often new government programs are started without adequate expectations for what the programs will be expected to achieve. I believe new government programs should exist only if they produce results for those they are expected to serve – consumers, customers or taxpayers, pick your word.

When programs don’t produce results, the best result would be to get rid of them.

3. MAKE A LOGICAL TRADE-OFF: If hospitals and insurers agree to be taxed – at the current time, most of them do – then a price for the agreement should be that bills negative to hospitals and health insurers should either not be considered or go down to defeat.

Some critics might label this an inappropriate trade-off. They might say, “Let individual issues be decided on their individual merits.” Often, I might agree, but in this case – taxing health care providers – there should be what you could call “a quid pro quo.” In return for agreeing to be taxed, providers should escape bad legislation.

When we first negotiated these new taxes in 2003, that was a price we advocated and it happened.

So, with passage of House Bill 2010, legislators and the governor have one issue – health care funding – off the table.

I hope the new deal works.