{"id":302094,"date":"2025-10-14T07:52:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/302094\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T07:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:52:14","slug":"oregon-democrats-sound-the-alarm-on-potentially-higher-healthcare-premiums-during-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/302094\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregon Democrats sound the alarm on potentially higher healthcare premiums during shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) \u2014 When it comes to the government shutdown, a sticking point for Oregon Democrats is healthcare.<\/p>\n

One Portland woman shared her story during a press conference in South Portland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am here this afternoon because the premiums we must pay for my husband’s life sustaining coverage are projected to increase by thousands of dollars,\u201d said Lynn Rosen, a Northeast Portland resident.<\/p>\n

She said keeping the same health insurance plan through the marketplace will mean her premiums will go up over 45%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will pay over $2,000 a month for the three of us in our family,\u201d said Rosen.<\/p>\n

Democratic U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley put stories like Rosen\u2019s into context, citing Kaiser Family Foundation research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are talking about, in Oregon, a 68% projected average increase, an average increase of $1,300 per person,\u201d said Sen. Merkley. \u201c32,000 people in Multnomah county depend on the ACA exchange tax credits. About a quarter of them are going to lose those tax credits completely. And the other three quarters are going to see them greatly diminished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the Republican party see things differently; specifically Republican Congressman Cliff Bentz. On Monday, KATU attempted to reach Bentz to get his take on rising premium costs, but his team did not get back to us.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: Protesters rally against ICE and National Guard in Portland Sunday<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

However, last week, KATU interviewed Bentz. He said that throwing money at the issue of healthcare is not the way to improve it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHealthcare is a $4 trillion issue and we need to do our very very best to make sure that we’re spending that money wisely. I don’t think we are, and we need to do a better job, supplying better health care, but we don’t need to throw more money at it. We need to figure out how to restructure it so that insurance companies are not taking more than they should, and so that people are getting the care that they need,\u201d said Congressman Bentz.<\/p>\n

Since the government shutdown began, both sides of the political aisle have began blaming each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Republicans have shut down the government in order to savage healthcare, and we are fighting to get that healthcare service back,\u201d said Sen. Merkley at Monday\u2019s press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalloween is coming but unfortunately the republicans have gotten the job on fright night,\u201d U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden said at Monday\u2019s press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats need to step up and help us reopen the government,\u201d said Congressman Bentz. \u201cThe number of people being affected negatively by this shutdown is in the tens of hundreds of millions of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the Department of Homeland Security weighed in, saying in part \u201cIt is TSA’s top priority to ensure that travelers have the most safe, pleasant and efficient airport experience possible. However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

KATU asked both sides of the aisle what they would do to compromise.<\/p>\n

Sen. Wyden said he could cut costs to make the budget more appealing to Republicans.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Oregon’s Rep. Bentz voices concerns over Portland’s reputation amid ongoing protests<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, with respect to costs, I can come up with all kinds of ways for containing the costs.”<\/p>\n

“And I think that’s so important. I’ve been for something called upcoding, which is unfortunately a way that insurance companies rip off taxpayers to take minor illnesses and blow them up and they get all this money from the government and taxpayers. I’ve got ideas for controlling costs, and I’ll make them available to republicans,\u201d said Wyden.<\/p>\n

We reached out to Congressman Bentz\u2019s team on Monday to see how he could compromise, and we did not hear back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) \u2014 When it comes to the government shutdown, a sticking point for Oregon Democrats is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":302095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[7023,3232,7033,210,1141,1142,212,10494,98499,3172,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-302094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-affordable-care-act","9":"tag-budget","10":"tag-democrats","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-health-care","13":"tag-healthcare","14":"tag-oregon","15":"tag-premiums","16":"tag-shutdown","17":"tag-tax-credits","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115371438431102163","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}