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 to 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 press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Legislators in Salem appear to be heading toward sending a measure to the ballot that would declare health care to be a “right.”

The measure would proposed a change in Oregon’s Constitution to achieve the objective, thus would require a vote of the people.

It will be a controversial decision for the Legislature, not because health care is not important – it is – but because establishing the right could come at the expense of other important public policy priorities. 

K-12 education.  Higher education.  Public safety.

All could be at risk if health care becomes a right and the Legislature choose to fund that objective.

Here’s the way the Oregonian newspaper described the status of the issue in a story that appeared March 18:

“The Oregon Senate on Thursday approved a resolution that would ask voters to decide whether the state is obligated to ensure that every resident has access to affordable health care as a fundamental human right.

“The resolution, whose aim is to amend the state Constitution, was approved along party lines, with Democrat senators in favor and Republicans opposed.  It next goes to the House in the Democrat-controlled Legislature.”

A similar effort in 2018 was approved by the House, but a Senate committee demurred, thus not allowing it to become the first constitutional amendment in any state to create a fundamental right to healthcare.

Senate Majority Leader Rob Wagner made a simple case for the measure this time around when he said, “Every Oregonian deserves access to cost-effective and clinically appropriate health care.  Oregon’s Constitution should reflect that truth.”

By contrast, Senate Minority Leader Fred Girod took a different tack.

 “The bill doesn’t fund any system to deliver on that promise.  If Democrats are serious about giving Oregonians free health care, they should come up with an actual plan.”

All of this calls to mind a number of similar efforts over the years when I worked as a lobbyist at the State Capitol in Salem.  Health care organizations always were a major part of my client list.

The usual promoter of the right was the late State Representative Mitch Greenlick for whom the issue was a top priority, though he never climbed the hill to realize his goal.

For my part, I have mixed emotions about the issue.  On one hand, it’s hard to argue with the importance of health care as a public policy priority.  On the other hand, the other major programs funded by state tax dollars – education and public safety to name two – could contend they should be a right, as well.

Where I end up is here:

• Don’t establish any of the above issues as rights in the Constitution.
• Rely on the Joint Ways and Means Committee – the Legislature’s budget-making arm – to make the hard decisions about how to use limited state dollars to find the right balance for all of the top priorities.

That won’t appease health care advocates, but it represents reliance on legislators to accomplish one of main actions whenever they show up in Salem – which is to balance the state budget.

That won’t appease health care as a right advocates, for the proposition relies on elected leaders to do their jobs, which they sometimes don’t do.  Still, in this case, leaders have to balance the budget in relation to available revenue, not spend in deficit.  That alone makes the effort reliable.