CASE STUDY: Role Pac/West Played in Developing HB 3650 (Health Transformation)

Pac/West President Paul Phillips was the lead lobbyist working in front of and behind the scenes with members and other interest groups to ensure HB 3650 would be effective and politically palatable for a nearly evenly divided Oregon Legislature.

Phillips and the Pac/West team spent hours with legislative leadership in both the House and the Senate to address specific issues with the large and complex bill and managed to steward it through a difficult 2011 Legislative Session.

Recognizing that the increasing costs of providing health care as unsustainable Governor Kitzhaber proposed a bold solution: break down the Medicaid health care silos and unite traditionally competitive health providers (hospitals, doctors, mental health providers, etc.) under one service delivery system for both Medicaid and dually eligible clients. Known as Health Care Transformation, the goals of the new system are to give better care to clients by having health providers take a more holistic view to providing care to clients, save money by reducing redundancies in the silo system, and focus on preventative care lessening the need to access the system.

To work out the details of this plan, the Governor called for formation of a work group made up of 48 health care industry and legislative leaders. This work group, while effective in garnering support, lacked the ability to write the legislation necessary to make transformation a reality.

In recognition of this fact, the Governor called together a small group of diverse health care industry lobbyists to develop a bill they could unite around in order to accomplish health transformation. This group, known as the Mahonia Hall group developed a broad set of legislative concepts. These concepts were the foundation of transformation legislation, HB 3650.

With the Mahonia Hall group’s united concepts at the foundation of the transformation bill, it still had to navigate through a tumultuous legislative process with hundreds of interested parties trying to kill or change HB 3650. Pac/West staff worked hard to shepherd the bill though the process, resulting in the bill passing in both chambers with overwhelming, bi-partisan support. Even more remarkable, Phillips and his colleagues were able to maintain through to final passage 21 of the 22 critical concepts created by the Mahonia Hall group at the start of the process.

By working with the Governor and his staff as well as a myriad of health care stakeholders, we were able to build legislative bipartisan support for Health Care Transformation. From the initial meetings at Mahonia Hall to final amendments being adopted, his efforts delivered results.

As HB 3650 is implemented by Oregon Health Authority and the specifics of the new CCO model come to the Legislature for approval, Pac/West will continue to be a vital resource for all involved including the Governor, his staff, the Legislature, and other health care interests.