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A state audit released Tuesday pointed out flaws in the system used to screen eligibility for part of the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s free health care program, resulting in millions of dollars of benefits that may have been paid in error.
The issues identified by the Oregon Secretary of State concern the OHP Bridge—a relatively new program administered by the Oregon Health Authority, which is oriented toward people who make too much to be eligible for the standard version of the OHP.
The finding comes as the Oregon faces pressure to continue to reduce its higher-than-average error rate when determining eligibility for social safety net programs. It was part of a broader audit into Oregon’s use of federal funds, of which the state used about $21.1 billion during fiscal year 2025.
The secretary of state’s office says it audited 16 programs accounting for about $14.6 billion of that total.
The OHP Bridge program was the only one to receive an “adverse opinion.”
“The State of Oregon takes our responsibility to be good stewards of tax dollars seriously,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said in a written statement. “This audit will help agencies improve their administration of federal programs to ensure the state is efficiently spending public money to the best benefit of the public.”
The OHP Bridge program launched in 2024, targeting those with household incomes between 133% and 200% of the federal poverty line—about $43,000 to $64,000 for a family of four.
The audit found the state incorrectly admitted to the plan people who earned both too little and too much.
On both fronts, the audit said part of the problem was the Oregon Eligibility determination system, known as ONE.
The Oregon Department of Human Services and the Oregon Health Authority both use ONE to screen eligibility for taxpayer funded benefits— things like food and health care.
The audit found two issues with ONE. The first involved instances when the state received information that someone made more than the 200% threshold. The ONE system should have closed the case and ended eligibility. But the audit found instances in which such cases were not closed. The state says it had found this “system error” in May 2025.
Then there were the beneficiaries who made too little. The lower income threshold of 133% was for a period not correctly coded into ONE, the audit found. This meant about 3,600 people who made below 133% of the federal poverty level got the OHP Bridge benefit.
Notably, this second group likely would have been eligible for standard OHP anyways. Yet the mistake underscores flaws within the ONE system. State officials said that the “the lower limit threshold was inadvertently removed” from a system to test eligibility determinations, and that they told the vendor about the issue in December 2024. They said the error was corrected six months later, in June 2025.
All told, these and related issues resulted in questionable costs of about $15 million, the audit estimated.
The Oregon Health Authority said it thinks that estimate is too high. Still, it agreed with recommendations and has already taken steps to correct the problems, which it says it identified before the audit.
