Need free or low cost health insurance?
28 01 08 - 11:19
Chuck Sheketoff
After years of calling the state lottery "a bad tax on people with a poor understanding of statistics, " I've finally found a lottery to promote.
Sign up for the Oregon Health Plan (OHP) "reservation list" so you can get in on the Oregon Health Plan lottery.
This is the only kind of lottery that's totally devoted to helping poor Oregonians.
It is vitally important that as many Oregonians as possible get their name on the reservation list for the health plan lottery during this one-month window of opportunity.
At its peak, the Oregon Health Plan served 132,000 poor Oregonians, but starting with cuts passed and signed into law in 1995 and concluding with the closure of the program in 2004, enrollment fell to just 19,000. With over 600,000 uninsured throughout Oregon the importance of the reservation list and the limited time to reserve a slot cannot be over emphasized.
All Oregonians deserve the security that comes with health care coverage. We're a long way from that goal, but this lottery is a positive step that will protect at least some of our fellow Oregonians.
Here's how it works:
Starting today and continuing through February 29, the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS) will be accepting reservations for a lottery for new slots in the Oregon Health Plan, Oregon's Medicaid program.
Those on the reservation list will be part of a monthly lottery in which people will be randomly chosen and invited to apply for the Oregon Health Plan. DHS will initially draw 3,000 names, and then a declining number in subsequent months until the program reaches its budgeted level of an average of 24,000 per month for the two-year budget period. They expect about 10,000 Oregonians will be added to the roles.
All adult Oregonians who believe they might qualify for the OHP slots should put their names on the reservation list by calling toll-free 1-800-699-9075. People can also sign up online or by mail or fax. Request forms to mail or fax are here.
Sign up people who need health insurance: Health care providers, social service agencies, and family and friends of the uninsured can sign up people for the reservation list.
You just need to provide a person's name and birth date and an address where the person can receive mail, even your own address. Then, if the person is lucky and chosen in the lottery to apply, the person will fill out the actual application.