Tiffany Anderson

Collapse of the State: Symptoms of Destruction

For my service-learning project I examined the loss of human services in Oregon. I was asked to document uncivilized behavior. I explored the idea that the problems coming from Oregon’s budget deficit are symptoms of The State’s collapse.

Measure 28 would have prevented $310 million in cuts but budget problems came before the failure of the measure.

74.4 percent of Oregon’s revenue relies on individual income tax, more then any other state in the union.

Individual’s Stories: Contracts Broken

Elimination of the medically needy program means 8,000 people lose mental health, cancer, and diabetic medication needed to survive.

· Jackie D. paid for her medications instead of her rent, as she states she can’t function without her meds (she has extreme Depression and has been hospitalized with several suicide attempts in the past); she understands that she needs to have her medications, but skips paying her rent to do so. Her caseworker put her name in for Emergency Housing but because of a new “one time only” policy she was not given assistance with her rent. Jackie’s current situation is unknown.

· Gwendolyn Brooks received a kidney last year and her care needs had gradually decreased to make her a level 17. When her services were cut she lost her medical coverage. After not having medications and all of the stress related to that her kidney transplant failed and she had to have heart surgery. She spent a week in a nursing home under skilled Medicare and had to return to home services as a level 10. She is back to square one, getting dialysis 3 times a week and back on the transplant list.

March 31, 2003 The Statesman Journal wrote some hospitals were removing “poorer uninsured patients from waiting lists for organ transplants.” Hospitals fear that these patients would not be able to afford the medications required after surgery.

Suicides

· Michael Shay shot himself while getting treatment at Salem Hospital Psychiatric Medicine Center. He had checked himself into the center where administrators were told, “he stopped taking medicines because they were no longer reimbursed.”

· Farrah Russel completed suicide 2 days after receiving a notification from the Department of Human Services. The letter described the termination of the Medically Needy Program. Farrah had been suffering from schizophrenia for three years. She had been renting an apartment, living off of state general assistance and was overwhelmed when she discovered her state funding had been cut. Her mother has been serving as an advocate for the restoration of mental health coverage.

The problem goes beyond individuals and harms the entire healthcare system.

Business Week Online Article 3/24/03 described Oregon current attempt to reduce the overall budget by 10% over the next two years. During this same period, the budget for the mental-health services could drop twice as fast, by about $200 million.

Richard Scheffler professor of public policy at Berkeley describes that reducing mental health services will only cause more problems in the long run. “Many of the mentally ill could end up in jail, on the streets, or in hospital emergency rooms.”

Things to Consider:

· Mentally ill are easy political targets and small voting population.

· Hospitals lose money when State reduces coverage.

· Closure of Methadone clinics creates herion users for life.

Education

States often try to avoid mid-year education cuts to minimize disruption to school district budgets. Nevertheless, at least 11 states are implementing or planning mid-year K-12 reductions for the 2002-03 school year. These mid-year reductions are having significant impacts, resulting in teachers and other staff members being laid off, and in reductions in the length of the school year.

· In Oregon, more than 50 school districts will shorten the 2002-03 school year by several days to several weeks to save money. In Portland, for instance, the school year will be shortened by 24 days this year.

· $95 million cut in school funding, which comes out to $145 per student loss.

State colleges and universities in at least six states have instituted unusual mid-year tuition increases this spring. These unanticipated tuition increases have played havoc with the financial arrangements students thought they had in place for the school year.

Oregon universities raised tuition 13 percent for the spring. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Justice System and Public Safety

Under current restrictions the state won’t pay for the return of parole or probation violators. State funds are available only for those accused of crimes of violence against persons, such as murder, rape and first-degree assault.

Several states, including Ohio, Oregon and Pennsylvania, plan to close prisons or postpone opening new prisons that already have been constructed. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

As funding is cut to other programs prisons become even more crowded. 17% of prisoners in Oregon state prisons suffer from serious mental illnesses –twice the percentage from 10 years ago.

Tour of Oregon State Penitentiary

Death Row inmates are housed and executions are carried out at OSP.

Since 1903 60 men have been executed in Oregon. Two inmates have been executed since voters reinstate capital punishment in 1984, in 1996 and 1997. Currently 28 inmates are on death row at OSP.

Conclusions and Suggestions

The state is neglecting its duty to those most in need. The people of Oregon made a contract to provide a certain level of services and currently that contract is being broken. We should hold legislatures and citizens responsible for actions of the state. As an institution “the state” makes an easy scapegoat. It is unable to defend itself. Oregonians must realize that these problems are closely connected and the only way to reach a lasting solution would be to reevaluate them together.

Problems are all connected and until we realize this we drag our feet while trying to progress. When a government breaches its obligation to “deliver political goods –security, education, health services, economic opportunity, a legal framework of order and judicial system to administer it,” that system is marked with failure. (Rotberg)