Oregon House OKs health care as a right

SALEM, Ore. — Oregon’s Legislature took a step Tuesday toward enshrining the right to health care in the state Constitution, a move that would be unprecedented in the United States but raises serious funding questions.

The House of Representatives’ 35-25 endorsement of the bill sends it to the state Senate, whose approval would put the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot for Oregon voters in the November election. The move comes as the Trump administration has tried to dismantle former President Barack Obama’s health care law.

If the Senate passes the bill, voters would be asked to consider amending the state’s 160-year-old Constitution to declare: “It is the obligation of the state to ensure that every resident of Oregon has access to cost-effective, medically appropriate and affordable health care as a fundamental right.”

Oregon is one of the most liberal U.S. states and the first to legalize suicide for the terminally ill.. Both chambers of the Oregon Legislature are controlled by Democrats.

In California, a singlepayer plan supported by some Democrats was spiked last year by other Democrats because the cost would have been astronomical.

Those who spoke out in favor of the Oregon bill on the House floor Tuesday said no Oregonian should lack access to medical care, but Republican opponents said there is no plan to fund making health care access a right and warned that doing so would make the state vulnerable to lawsuits.

His voice frail, Rep. Mitch Greenlick described how he was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2005 and relied on insurance to pay huge treatment costs.

“If I didn’t have insurance, I wouldn’t be here,” the Democrat from Portland said. “I would be dead.”

He urged lawmakers to pass the bill as “a moral decision.”