The House and Senate Committees on Health Care and veterans affairs will hold a work session on Monday night to consider House Bill 2009. This omnibus bill will establish a Health Care Authority that will have jurisdiction over dozens of aspects of health care regulation in Oregon. Some of the key provisions of the plan include:

• Establishes cost controls to ensure that increases in health care costs in Oregon are limited to the Consumer Price Index for medical care, minus 1 percent.
• The purchasing of individual and small business health care plans shall be purchased through an exchange administered by the agency.
• Does not allow insurance to be denied on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

Federal investigators responsible for tracing food-borne pathogens are only able to fully trace 12.5% of food back to its original source, according to a report released yesterday by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Government investigators bought several items including eggs, milk, oatmeal, fruit, yogurt, and tomatoes and tried to trace 40 of the consumer goods back to their source. They were unable to accurately assess the source in 31 out of of 40 of the items purchased, and could find no record of the originating source in 4 instances.

Grappling with a budget shortfall that could measure between $3,300 million and $5,500 million dollars in the 2009-2010 biennium, legislators and agencies are looking to cut costs and raise fees anywhere they can.

One place that the Senate appears to be looking is the Oregon Voter's Pamphlet. The Senate Rules Committee will today consider SB776, a bill that takes the unusual step of assigning blank "placeholders" to the section where fees for voter's pamphlet articles are currently assigned. SB776 also puts placeholders in sections pertaining to the length of voter's pamphlet statements.

State Representative Vicki Berger, who was a driving force behind a 2005 effort to create a public entity to buy Portland General Electric, is introducing a bill to allow Oregon Community Power to use eminent domain to buy PGE.

"I think if PGE has $4.5 million to give away to Peggy Fowler, their rates are too high," Berger says. "I’m aware of other models such as Seattle Power and Light where public ownership works just fine."

Public Utility Districts, which are common throughout Oregon generally charge consumers rates that are roughly half of those charged by private utilities such as PGE.