Skip to main contentKATU televison (Channel 2) will host a live
town hall with lawmakers tonight to discuss what happens now that Cover Oregon
has announced it won't have a fully operational website by the federal deadline
of March 31.
The discussion will follow the release today of a state-sponsored study by First Data Government Solutions about what went wrong with Oregon's healthcare exchange.
The review comes after the bungled roll-out of a bug-ridden online-portal that wouldn't allow individuals to sign up for health care coverage, and the withdrawal of a $21 million ad campaign targeting healthy young Oregonians who failed to turn out.
The debacle led players to point fingers. Some blamed Oracle, which provided the technology. Others blamed Carloyn Lawson, the now-former executive of the Oregon Health Exchange. Lawson filed a tort claim alleging that state officials orchestrated a cover-up that included deflecting the blame onto her.
Tonight's town hall panel
will include state representatives Mitch Greenlick (D- Portland), Jason Conger
(R-Bend) and Dennis Richardson (R-Central Point) and state senator Elizabeth
Steiner Hayward (D-NW Portland/Beaverton).
That panel includes a of knowledge about medical and budgetary issues.
Greenlick, a former OHSU researcher and Steiner Hayward, a family physician, are two of the Legislature's leading health care experts. Conger, a lawyer who is running for U.S. Senate, is a lawyer whose practice includes significant work on Oregon's new coordinated care organization, and Richardson, who's running for governor is a former co-chairman of the Joint Ways and Means Committee, which writes the state's budget.
You can watch the event live beginning at 7:30 or head down to the Smith Student Union Ballroom at Portland State University to join in the live studio audience.
WWeek 2015