All too often we hear that southern Oregon is not well represented in Salem, and changing that perception has become a core part of our focus. As part of this effort, Asante’s Public Affairs Team spent three days in Salem during last week’s Legislative Days meeting with lawmakers.
We raised concerns well-known to those living in the Rogue Valley, yet routinely overlooked by the dominant voices in the northern population centers.
Southern Oregon’s economy is hurting. Despite the efforts of strong local Chambers of Commerce and regional economic development organizations, the region continues to lose jobs and businesses because of a challenging state-level business and tax climate, along with affordability challenges that plague the state as a whole.
While the impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) are very much on the minds of lawmakers in Salem, we reminded them that hospitals are already on the brink due to a triple threat: below-cost reimbursement, unsustainable regulatory burden, and rising labor and supply costs. The 2027 Legislative Session and the redesign of Oregon’s Medicaid program may very well decide whether rural communities keep their hospitals and independent providers – or lose them.
As lawmakers begin to consider legislation for this coming year, our focus will be on:
- Addressing costly and detrimental regulations that create administrative burdens and take dollars away from patient care.
- Pushing for Medicaid funding models that fully reimburse hospitals and independent providers for maintaining the safety net and caring for sick and economically disadvantaged patients.
- Fight damaging and misleading proposals, such as reference-based pricing, that will force service cuts and closures in rural Oregon, and push costs onto patients.
- Backing our local business community by supporting proposals to boost economic development in rural communities and throughout the state.
During our time in Salem, we met with over 30 legislators, including leadership from both parties and both chambers, as well as lawmakers from every part of Oregon. We want to give special appreciation to our local southern Oregon delegation, each of whom works tirelessly in a difficult legislative climate to champion our region.
We look forward to continuing to fight for southern Oregon and for health care throughout the state and we will continue to share updates.
