Oregon advocates hope universal health care heals patients — and physician moral injury

Physicians go into medicine to help patients, and when they can’t do that job, they suffer a mental and emotional toll.

So what would it be like to practice in a state where patient access to health care opens up by recognizing it as a fundamental right?

Doctors, patients and their allies hope to find out through efforts in Oregon, now in process to be the first among the 50 states to create a universal health plan.

The state of Oregon and the advocates there were cited in the analysis, “Moral Injury in Medicine: The Human Costs of Practicing in a Profit-Driven System.” It’s an example of “rampant financialization” of health care systems, particularly from 2020 to 2025, according to the organization Physicians for a National Health Program.

It’s also the state where lawmakers in 2019 approved a Task Force on Universal Health Care to research options for health care. Three years later, voters put health care as a fundamental right into the state constitution.

This month, the organization Health Care for All Oregon is hosting town hall meetings around the state for advocates to explain the latest developments in the process of creating universal health care there.

Rebecca Schoon, Ph.D., is an associate professor of public health at Pacific University and a board member of Health Care for All Oregon. She spoke with Medical Economics about conditions there for physicians, patients and elected leaders working to change health care.