Short Session Newsletter
In This Update:

• Priority Healthcare Bills

• Willamette Falls Locks

• Abernathy Bridge/205 Update

• A Typical Day at the Capitol 

Hello friends and neighbors, 

I'm writing to you from my office in the Capitol to update you on some short session news. I’m happy to have had many visits from constituents and organizations discussing bills being debated this session. 

HB 4101 - Telehealth Equity Act

Status: Passed Health Care and Currently awaiting a hearing in Ways and Means.

Health care providers treating Oregon’s Medicaid and underserved populations lack predictability in coverage policies to utilize virtual care within their practices. While Oregon has modernized policies in previous sessions (2015 & 2017) for commercial payers and patients, Medicaid and underserved populations were left behind, leading to disparity between providers treating Oregon’s vulnerable population on Medicaid and providers delivering care for commercially insured patients. Oregon must close this health equity gap for patients in rural and underserved communities throughout the state.

HB 4102: Utilization Management Transparency Act

Status: Passed off House floor yesterday and heading to the Senate

As a primary care provider to the homebound community in our district, I can sometimes get my patients what they need, but there are also times where I experience unnecessary administrative burdens which have led to complications and hospitalizations. 

Utilization Management protocols, such as prior authorization (PA) and step therapy (ST), are important cost-containment and quality assurance tools employed by health insurers, but they often result in higher levels of administrative burden and can contribute to delayed treatment and negative patient outcomes. 

Prior authorization requires medical offices to ask permission from a patient’s insurance company before performing certain medical procedures or prescribing certain medications; Step Therapy protocols require patients to try, and fail, certain therapies before qualifying for others. This legislation seeks to ensure that if commercial payers employ such cost-containment programs, the process should be transparent, efficient, and fair.

HB 4150 -  Willamette Falls Locks

Status: Passed off House floor yesterday and heading to the Senate 

Passing this bill is the first step in charting the future course of the Locks for the next 150 years! The Locks are a regional asset, and if  the legislature does not act this session the Army Corps of Engineers will close them and our community would lose the locks forever. The Willamette Falls Locks Commission worked diligently to create a Public Corporation to take ownership of the Locks and I'm happy to announce HB 4150 passed on the house floor today and will create a public corporation that will own, operate, repair, and maintain the Willamette Falls Locks.

Abernathy Bridge/205 Update

During the interim I hosted Transportation Town Halls in both Clackamas and Washington County; inviting local leaders to join in discussing transportation issues affecting our communities and giving constituents an opportunity to ask questions and voice their concerns. It was very apparent early in conversation that the issue of tolling the I205 was on the forefront of everyone's mind. This concern has been a continuous conversation and we have heard from countless constituents looking for a solution.  

The I-205 Widening and Seismic Improvements Project, which would address bottleneck congestion, add rapid bus transit, and make the Abernethy Bridge earthquake-ready, is nearly ‘shovel-ready.’ Per ODOT, I-205 would likely be used as part of the traffic diversion plan when the Rose Quarter is under construction. If I-205 is not improved prior to this work, the added congestion in the bottleneck will lead to even more traffic diversion into communities and their local roads, thereby decreasing safety and increasing costs to those jurisdictions to maintain their infrastructure.

Currently, the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project is earmarked for state bond funding, yet the project is years away from being ‘construction-ready’. A proposed Environmental Impact Statement, coupled with public concern about equity and climate impacts, could push the project back even further.

This session I have proposed a solution and have submitted an amendment that would reallocate the HB 2017 funds dedicated to the Rose Quarter Project to pay for the Abernethy Bridge and I-205 Project; prioritizing funding for a project of statewide significance that is ready to go. This would not increase new funding or take away from other projects that are already planned and contracted out by ODOT.  It makes prudent fiscal sense to reprioritize state investments to ‘construction-ready’ projects. Changing the bonding allocation ensures ODOT the opportunity to be deliberate in their planning to address the equity and environmental concerns at the Rose Quarter while saving money, creating jobs, and investing in much needed infrastructure. We submitted a letter of support requesting the amendment get scheduled.  This letter was signed with bipartisan support by both Senators and Representatives from the Clackamas Caucus. 

A Typical Day

Everyday is different, some nights after a long day of meetings and committee hearings we are called to the floor, others I need to rush back to the district to hear from constituents or attend community meetings.

Somethings are consistent from day-to-day:

Committee Meetings: This is where we do the work of vetting bills and amending them as needed. Committees hear input from stakeholders and the public, adopt amendments to bills, and take votes about whether they should move to the next step of the process. My committee assignments include the House Committee On Health Care and the Joint Committee On Ways and Means Subcommittee On Transportation and Economic Development