Oregon legislators convene Feb. 1 in Salem for a one-month
session. They’ll deal with education reform, the budget and
fundamentally changing the way the state pays for health care.
On that last issue, Sen. Chip Shields
(D-Portland) has been less than transparent about the conflict of
interest between his public duty and private financial interest.
In his day job,
Shields, 44, serves as the business manager for Hands On Medicine, a
North Portland clinic owned by his wife, Shelda Holmes. The clinic
treats Medicaid patients, whose bills are paid by the state.
Shields—a lawmaker
since 2005—has been a strong advocate for his constituents, many of them
low-income residents of North and Northeast Portland. He’s also a
member of the Senate Health Care Committee, which makes him a player in
Gov. John Kitzhaber’s proposed reforms.
Kitzhaber wants to
cut Medicaid-—by $239 million now, and more later. To absorb those cuts,
hospitals, doctor groups and clinics are forming “coordinated care
organizations,” or CCOs, to provide Medicaid services more efficiently.
Shields has been demanding details about these plans- and mixing his public and private roles when doing so.
According to documents WW
obtained through public records requests, Shields sent emails to
organizers of the proposed CCO from a personal email account and
identified himself as the “business manager” of Hands On Medicine.
But in a Jan. 17
email from his repshields@comcast.net address (Shields used to serve in
the House), he wrote, “[H]ere’s the information I need in order to do my
job of representing the 120,000 people in N/NE part of Multnomah
County, and the Medicaid recipients current and future in my district.”
His questions,
though, focused more on the implications of the proposed CCO for his
wife’s clinic than for his constituents. He asked for “a statement of
who is representing private-practice primary care providers, and who is
representing other practitioners who are not part of a hospital system.”
He also asked to be included in all future CCO planning meetings, which are not open to the public.
Shields says he was trying to shed light on a billion-dollar, publicly funded enterprise.
But he acknowledges he needs to separate his dual roles with a bright line—and hasn’t done so.
“It’s a fair point,” he says. “I should send anything related to my legislative work from my legislative email address.”
Are you kidding me? This is the worst thing you can find? He sent an email from the wrong address and then freely admitted it when you asked? Oh, horrors!
So a bunch of hospitals are meeting behind closed doors to figure out how they are going to keep their share of the health care pie under the new plan. And instead of making those secretive and manipulative hospitals the Rougue of the Week, you pick on the one legislator who is trying to get this process oout into the open. I say Senator Shields is doing the job we elected him to do. And Willy Week is way out of line on this one. I'm really kind of shocked at this pretty shoddy reporting. This isn't politifact, you know.
In case you didn't realize it, medicaid payments for typical medical services are a joke. I doubt the Shields make enough money from medicaid patients to really create a conflict of interest. If anything, I consider it a reverse conflict. It is amazing someone is fighting to keep things open and working for medicaid patients to be seen by a normal provider. The people to be rightfully suspicious of are the big players who do things behind closed doors and try to control and manipulate the system. Hello?!
Speaking of honesty and openess...who is "editorial staff" that doesn't want to own up to writing such warped reporting, while criticizing someone else for not being transparent. (?!?*?) Put up or shut up!
(I'm a health care provider.)
Glad to see that everything in Portland is going so well that we're down to people who use the wrong email account for Rogue of the week. It sure is nice to live in utopia where the cops don't shoot mentally ill people, gangs don't shoot children, and everyone has jobs and a nice house. Oh, wait ...
Seriously, Willamette Week? Tell you what, next week, why don't you slap your own shining faces up there under the Rogue banner for being too lazy to go out and find someone who actually deserves the title.
I had been wondering where "Rouge of the Week"(sic) had gone.
Now I'm not so happy to have found out -
you all sure find the easy way to make a ruckus w/o content
That should really do us all a lot of good, right?
yeh! so, umm, thanks - NOT