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Oppose the OHSU/Legacy Merger
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Stop the Tax-Supported Corporate Medicine Takeover!
Last year, Oregon Health and Science University and Legacy Health announced plans to join forces to create an “integrated health system” in the Portland area. But once the real plans came out, the truth was plain to see:
This isn’t a collaboration — it’s a TAKEOVER!
And what’s most odd about it is that the corporate takeover is not backed by Wall Street, but by Oregonians’ own tax dollars. OHSU’s new “Summary of Terms” now explicitly states that OHSU will be the “sole corporate parent” of the new system, an unprecedented consolidation of health care that will ultimately lead to lower standards of care and poorer patient outcomes.
Though OHSU styles itself as an independently financed institution, it has long relied on tax dollars and the backing of Oregon’s general funds to prop itself up. Aside from the continuing state funding of millions of dollars to its basic operational programs (such as information sharing), OHSU borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars backed by the State’s General Fund to support itself, and still freely uses the State’s tax-exempt status to issue revenue bonds.
Meanwhile, while the top OHSU executives are making over $1 million a year in salary alone, actual healthcare workers like nurses at OHSU faced a 4% wage cut when OHSU needed to tighten its belt (to make room for more lavish executive benefits).
That is not the kind of healthcare system we need MONOPOLIZING CARE in Oregon!
While corporatized healthcare is far from perfect, the current environment of competition among healthcare systems and consumer choices leads to better standards, better pricing, and better treatment.
We don’t have to wonder what an OHSU-led healthcare system would look like: Lavish salaries at the top, privatized pharmaceutical spinoffs, and steep disinvestment in healthcare workers and patient care.
That’s wrong for our public dollars, and that’s wrong for Oregon.
(Click to send a message to the Oregon Health Authority to disallow the merger.)
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