Next Up at City Council, July 2, 2008

Submitted by Amanda Fritz on July 1, 2008 - 8:23am.

The Portland City Council Agenda for tomorrow, Wednesday, is refreshingly short, and likely to be finished before noon. A nice contrast to the overladen line-ups the past few weeks, when several "morning" sessions starting at 9:30 a.m. ran over four hours.

The most significant item on this week's list is probably the one first on the Regular Agenda:


948 Declare it is the policy of the City that children who lack health care coverage in the City of Portland deserve basic health care coverage (Resolution introduced by Mayor Potter and Commissioners Adams, Fish, Leonard and Saltzman)

I will post comments on this initiative another time.

There are no items scheduled for Wednesday afternoon or Thursday on this week's Agenda. Happy 4th of July, everyone!

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Amanda, Not to get ahead of
Submitted by dave lister on July 5, 2008 - 7:57am.
Amanda, Not to get ahead of you, but my understanding of the children's health care initiative is that it contains no means testing for income level. As written, parents who are currently purchasing or paying through their employers for health care for their children could cancel those policies and put their kids on the taxpayer funded system. We certainly need to figure out a way to provide health care for children of families who cannot afford it, but we shouldn't set up a system which will allow families who can afford it to take advantage of a public system. Come next year, when you are on the council, I hope you will insist that means testing be included in any program designed to help the needy. Dave Lister
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I see multiple problems in
Submitted by Amanda Fritz on July 7, 2008 - 12:15am.
I see multiple problems in the program now in progress, Dave. I agree with your concern. The path taken by the Council is more fiscally responsible than the ballot measure proposal, so it was a move in the right direction. You can be assured I will be watching closely to make sure. I agree with Mayor Potter, that statewide coverage of health care for children in 2009 is necessary to avoid an extremely-expensive Portland-only program. The Portland program is moot if the state steps up.
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