Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden says he’s planning to introduce a bill in Congress that is inspired by Oregon’s efforts to prevent corporate takeovers in medicine.
At a roundtable in Eugene Tuesday, Wyden heard from both patients and providers who said they were frustrated by increasing interference from insurance companies, and for-profit interests.
The event included members of Eugene Emergency Physicians, the first organization to use Oregon’s law to sue their hospital, PeaceHealth, to prevent it from replacing them with an out-of-state staffing company.
"I love the fact that they took on private equity right here in this town,” Wyden said. “This is all about taking on big lobbies, and that's what's going on here."
Wyden said he’s working with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the proposal to address corporate decision-making in medicine. If Democrats are able to win the Senate in November, Wyden said he’s also hoping to take on prescription drug costs and roll back cuts in HR1, the Republican tax bill that placed new limits on who can qualify for Medicaid..
During the event, Wyden and two state lawmakers from Eugene, Sen. James Manning and Rep. Nancy Nathanson, also heard from people who said they had already been struggling to access healthcare for years.
Both supported SB 951, the law Eugene Emergency Physicians used. They have also worked to provide legislative oversight amidst fallout from corporate consolidation of healthcare in Eugene and after PeaceHealth closed the University District hospital in 2023.
Susan Bliven of Eugene told Wyden she is medically fragile and had been seeing about 13 specialists to keep different health conditions under control. She said changes to insurance and an exodus of doctors locally has disrupted her care and left her long overdue on treatments
“The support group I’ve had that’s kept me stable is breaking down,” she said.
Nathanson and Manning said they were focused on continuing their work to address healthcare costs, consolidation, and other trends that have negatively impacted healthcare in Oregon. They also asked Wyden for help, saying the budget cuts, as well as work requirements in HR1 on top of the existing healthcare trends, have put the state in a bind.
“We need national solutions,” Nathanson said. “We cannot get ahead, we cannot fill the holes and we cannot make the solutions permanent as one state acting on our own.”
