Director's Message

May 12, 2006

To: All DHS employees

From: Bruce Goldberg, DHS Director

"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."

----Yogi Berra

"Cover the Uninsured Week" ended last Sunday, but I’m purposely writing about it this week to make a point – every week should be Cover the Uninsured Week.

The leading unsolved health policy problem in our nation is the failure to provide adequate health care to every resident. To understand why, consider this: An estimated 43 million Americans are uninsured and nearly 20 percent are children. The uninsured and those without access to basic health care are sicker and die sooner than those who have health insurance. The lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States.

Health care has become increasingly unaffordable for individuals, for businesses and for the state. As a result, here in Oregon, the percentage of those without health insurance increased from 14 percent in 2002 to 17 percent in 2004. In real numbers that is 609,000 people or about one out of every five Oregonians. Of those without health insurance, 105,000 are under age 18.

In some areas of Oregon, the numbers are even higher. In parts of Eastern Oregon, for example, one out of every four adults and nearly one out of every three children do not have coverage.

At its core, this issue is not so much about health insurance as it is about our values as a society.

Health is basic to all human enterprises. It is necessary for the pursuit of one’s livelihood. Without a certain level of health, a person cannot train, students cannot learn, individuals cannot develop skills and they cannot use existing skills in productive activities. Good health is vital to achievement of personal satisfaction, happiness and personal relationships.

Health insurance is just one of the means that helps us achieve the goal of good health. Of course, it takes more than health insurance or access to health care to be healthy. It takes healthy communities, employment, healthy lifestyles, a healthy environment, and a host of other things.

Most everyone agrees on the need to cover the uninsured, to work toward a health care system where medical breakthroughs narrow the gap between the haves and the have-nots, rather than widen them, and where our science is in harmony with our fundamental sense of humanity, fairness, and values.

The question is how do we get from a system that leaves 43 million people in the U.S. without health care coverage to one which there is no longer a need for a "Covered the Uninsured Week."

We cannot get there by simply reciting values. Likewise, we cannot expect a better future by simply doing more of what we are doing now. We need to develop a new way of financing and delivering health care. Along with that we need a new mindset that embodies purpose and meaning, that spells out mutual obligations, and that views the health care enterprise differently – namely as a means towards achieving health.

Our challenge at DHS is to lead the way in developing and promoting those new structures. We understand that health is fundamental to everyone in the state and the foundation of all of our programs. We must work to assure that everyone else does as well.

Errata

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the great work our self-sufficiency staff throughout the state have done to reduce our food stamp error rate. Several of you wrote to remind me (thank you for doing so) that it’s not solely the CAF Self-Sufficiency staff that contributed to this. SPD staff and others have worked in partnership with CAF to achieve this. Thanks to everyone involved.

To provide feedback email: DHS.Directorsoffice@state.or.us

This message is intended for all department employees. Please read it electronically, if possible. Managers and supervisors are asked to share the message each week with employees who do not have email access.

If you have a disability and need this message to be provided to you in another format, please send an email to dhs.forms@state.or.us, or call (503) 947-5107. You can also fax your request to (503) 373-7690, or call (503) 947-5080 for TTY service. If you know of others who need this accommodation, please let them know it is available.