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.

If I would have written that headline a few months ago, you probably would have said, no, that is not case.

But, it is the case.

Under a 32-year-old law, health care employers in Oregon are prevented from mandating vaccines for their workers.

Meanwhile, the Veterans Administration in Oregon is imposing a vaccine requirement for all of its health care workers.  The reason the VA can do so?  It is part of the federal government, not state government here, so the state’s anti-vaccine law does not apply.

Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) pointed this out in an on-line news story this week.

By Amelia Templeton, Kate Davidson and Rob Manning, here is what it said:

“For more than 30 years, Oregon law has prevented employers from mandating vaccines for healthcare workers.  That’s left Oregon an outlier as more hospitals nationwide require vaccination. 

“The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced it will require COVID-19 vaccinations for its front-line health care employees, including doctors, nurses, and dentists.  Employees will have eight weeks to be fully vaccinated and can get the shot for free at any VA facility.

“It makes the VA the first health care system in Oregon to require the vaccination,” the OPB story said.  “State law generally prevents such mandates for healthcare workers. The policy will apply to the VA Portland health care system and all of its facilities.”

Nationwide, many health care systems are making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for their workforces, as vaccination rates have stalled and the delta variant is leading to yet another surge in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations.

Oregon is the only state in the nation with the vaccine prohibition.

“Virtually any employer in Oregon can require employees to be vaccinated, but hospitals are prohibited from doing so,” according to Michael Cox, vice president of public affairs for the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.

“We’re urging state policymakers to lift the prohibition.”

The fact is that legislators, in the recently concluded legislative session, did not deal with the old Oregon law. 

The issue comes up in next February’s short legislative session, but it is not clear yet whether employee unions will take a position on the issue.  Often, they believe employees should retain choices about their behavior. 

So, why dos the vaccine ban exist in Oregon law?

Well, it’s an old story.

When asked about the issue by the Oregonian newspaper, former State Senator Wayne Fawbush put it bluntly:  “Now, why the hell did we do that?”  [In the spirit of full disclosure, I lobbied Fawbush when he was in the Legislature, though, in my memory, we did not deal with the vaccine issue.]

The exemption, he recalls, was tucked into a 1989 bill that focused predominantly on ensuring health care workers were informed if they were exposed to patients with infectious diseases, a particularly important issue at the time because of the HIV epidemic.

But records of the committee hearings make no mention of the vaccine exemption that’s become such a hot topic 32 years later.  

So, we have this conundrum.  Those of us who seek health care services during the pandemic cannot be sure that workers we see have been vaccinated.

Strange, but true.  And my hope is that the dissonance will prompt legislators next year to fix the outdated Oregon law.  No doubt, former Senator Fawbush agrees with me.