I believe that significant improvements to Oregon’s healthcare delivery system should be made. I also believe that I can make an important contribution to these improvements by bringing a well-balanced, well-informed perspective to the discussions.

My history with healthcare has been long and varied. As a child, trips to the doctor were few and far between—money was scarce and health insurance was unattainable. At the age of nineteen, I started my first full-time job and became the proud recipient of my first employer-sponsored health insurance plan.

Since then, I have been involved with healthcare and healthcare delivery in one way or another: employee, employer, self-employed, unemployed, administrator, etc. I have shopped for and purchased insurance as an employer, for an employer, and as a private individual. I have been insured during good health and bad, and have been uninsured during such times. I have raised a child, with and without health insurance, and I have cared for a dying parent who was covered by VA and Medicare benefits.

I have watched the evolution of insurance-covered healthcare over the past thirty years, from paperwork nightmares for employers, employees, and healthcare providers, to the simplicity of HMOs, and back again. I have noticed the inverse relationship between the simplicity of the paperwork and the quality of the actual healthcare—as one improves, the other declines. I have followed the Oregon Health Plan since 1989, and I studied it in depth in 1993 as part of a college class.

I can’t say that I know what the answer is for improving health and healthcare in Oregon, but I do know that I can and will bring an even-handed perspective to the discussions, that I will strive to help build, maintain, and restore bridges between opposing viewpoints, and that I will work to help design a system that is effective, affordable, and fair for all.