Murmurs: Health Insurers Seek Huge Price Hike

HEALTH INSURERS SEEK HUGE PRICE HIKE: Oregonians will have fewer options for health insurance plans in 2027, and the plans that remain are seeking to raise prices at a rate with no recent precedent. That’s according to data released Monday by Oregon regulators, showing that insurers of individual and small group health plans are seeking to raise premiums in the state by a whopping average of 17% in 2027. The requests, which make rate increases of 6% to 10% in recent years pale in comparison, are subject to public input and are not yet final. But in recent years, the state has generally ended up letting health insurers raise rates to something close to the increases they sought. If history repeats, it would mean Oregon households and small businesses that get their insurance through the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace would be on the hook to pay several hundred dollars per year more per person on health insurance premiums—already a crushing expense for many. This is not just an Oregon phenomenon. Health care costs, already a huge portion of national spending, have been increasing far faster than inflation in recent years. But rising costs have hit the Oregon health insurance market hard, and some companies are bowing out. Providence Health Plan, once a stalwart of the state’s health insurance scene, is shutting down nearly entirely at the end of the year. Another local insurer, PacificSource, will stop offering health plans on the individual health insurance market in 2027.

MEIERAN ENTERS COUNTY CHAIR RACE: Sharon Meieran, an emergency room doctor and former Multnomah County commissioner, announced this week that she’s running for county chair. This would be her second bid for the top post at the county; she ran against current Chair Jessica Vega Pederson in a bitterly contested race in 2022 and lost. Meieran was first elected to the county board in 2016 and again in 2020. While on the board, she developed a reputation for criticizing the county’s homelessness response and stoking an ongoing feud with Vega Pederson. Meieran in her election announcement on social media said a blueprint she created for a more efficient, accountable county government “does what no one else has done this century: provides an actual road map for making Multnomah County work for the people it is meant to serve. Not generic talking points, but specific, achievable, and measurable goals, with money and accountability tied to outcomes.” Meieran joins two sitting county commissioners, Shannon Singleton and Julia Brim Edwards, in the race for chair.

TEACHERS UNION SAYS PPS LAYOFFS VIOLATE CONTRACT: The Portland Association of Teachers filed a class action grievance June 8 against Portland Public Schools for what it says are at least 77 educator layoffs in the upcoming school year that “blatantly violate collectively bargained layoff procedures.” Specifically, Rachel Gumpert, a spokeswoman for PAT, says the collective bargaining agreement includes a provision that layoffs be conducted based on seniority, “critically important” to prevent management favoritism in layoffs. “Unfortunately, the vast majority of layoff notices issued do not adhere to that protected seniority-based process and appear to have been determined arbitrarily,” Gumpert says. The district did not honor transparency in the process, she adds, and the justification for layoffs was inconsistent from school to school. The union says it’s aware of 82 layoffs so far, but has no sense of the scale of layoffs. PPS chief of communications Candice Grose did not disclose the total number of educator layoffs to WW, citing the current grievance process. “We disagree with the characterization that the district has violated the collective bargaining agreement,” Grose says, adding the district determined the layoffs based on a “complex review” of factors, including seniority, licensure, and contractual requirements. The district recently settled a one-year contract with PAT, meant to provide short-term stability as PPS faces an ongoing budget crunch.

COUNTY SUSPENDS PAYMENTS TO TROUBLED SHELTER CONTRACTOR: Multnomah County is withholding reimbursement to the shelter contractor Sunstone Way for the months of April, May and June while it completes a fiscal compliance review of the nonprofit’s spending. Sunstone Way, formerly known as All Good Northwest, is in the final stages of an abrupt collapse, which first received public attention in March when WW reported that its former finance manager had sued the nonprofit for retaliation after she questioned spending decisions. Later that month, Sunstone Way announced it would cease operations, laying off all 175 staffers who worked at three pod villages and two homeless shelters it oversaw. County officials say they had already scheduled a review of whether Sunstone Way complied with spending rules—but they tell WW pausing payment for three months of expenses is the only way the county can ensure it will recoup any misspent dollars, given that Sunstone is shutting down June 30. Oregon AFSCME, which represents the laid-off workers, sent a May 29 email to members warning that without county funds, Sunstone would not be able to pay severance and paid time off. Misha Litvak, president of AFSCME Local 1790, tells WW the union was close to signing a severance deal before learning it hinged on the county funds now in limbo. “It’s not entirely unexpected,” Litvak says, “but it is disappointing.” Representatives of Sunstone Way did not respond to a request for comment.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT LAMBASTS SERIAL MEETINGS LAW: In a rare moment of frustration for a typically placid official, Portland City Council President Jamie Dunphy said this week that the state’s serial meetings law is “crippling” the council and causing it embarrassment. The Oregon Government Ethics Commission’s rules, crafted in response to the passage of a 2023 state law, prohibit an elected official from conferring with a quorum of their colleagues about policy matters outside of the public eye, even if that quorum is created through a chain of emails, text messages or other communications. The rules are so stringent and sweeping, city councilors have previously said, that they inhibit councilors’ ability to meaningfully craft policy before public meetings. (That being said, councilors normally seem to be quite aware of policies before they’re brought publicly to the council.) “I think that the serial meetings law is crippling this body,” Dunphy said during a June 9 public meeting. “Our inability to know if there is broad consensus among this legislative body before we are in the middle of a public process is leading to moments of embarrassment, moments of lost decorum, and conflict that could have been avoided had we simply been able to have a collegial conversation with our colleagues.” Dunphy said the law has resulted in a council that’s “missing an enormous step of the legislative process and leading to really bad outcomes and a waste of time to not only councilors and city staff, but for the public.” A bill passed by the Oregon Legislature this spring but vetoed by Gov. Tina Kotek sought to fix the serial meetings law, but critics largely panned it as an extreme and sloppy overcorrection.