Gov. John Kitzhaber charted an independent path for Oregon in his State of the State speech Friday. He called on legislators and other officials to take control of Oregon’s educational and health-reform destiny and free the state from federal restraints.
To anyone who knows John Kitzhaber, M.D., there was little new in his nearly 30-minute speech Friday to the Portland City Club. Health reform long has been a core issue — as a legislator, he originated the pioneering Oregon Health Plan — and he’s added education reform during his third term as governor.
Kitzhaber is right that the keys to Oregon’s economic growth include improving the outcomes in education and health care while controlling the costs.
On education, he struck this theme: “We can stick with federal control and an Oregon high school graduation rate that is stuck stubbornly at 65 percent, or we can take the responsibility upon ourselves as a state to work together — with teachers, parents, district administrators, students, legislators and the larger community — to devise a system that allows more flexibility while pushing every district and every school to better student outcomes.”
On health care, he predicted the state could save billions of tax dollars by abandoning the traditional health system, with its hyperinflation, and embracing a new approach of coordinated care. That shift will start with patients on the Oregon Health Plan and expand over time to the private sector.
Astute private medical organizations, such as the WVP Health Authority, already are making that transformation. There is no point in hanging onto the status quo or whining about Kitzhaber’s fast pace.
That is why he prodded legislators when they return to the Capitol next month to not lose their nerve in accelerating the health-care and education reforms. Legislative action is integral to gaining federal waivers from traditional Medicaid regulations and from the No Child Left Behind requirements for public schools.
“We are well down the road to creating transformational change,” he told the City Club.
“There are some who suggest we have come too far, too fast. But what I hear from Oregonians is that we have not come far enough.”
Kitzhaber always has been a policy wonk, convinced of his political rectitude. But after eight years away from the Oregon Capitol, he’s mellowed politically and personally.
On Friday, he had kind words — well-deserved — for the 2011 Legislature’s bipartisan leadership. And he started the speech with a William Shakespeare quotation recommended by his adolescent son: “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
Shakespeare wasn’t talking of an independent, “Oregon way.” But Kitzhaber was.