Oregon appears to have just baked healthcare as a right into the state constitution

As the dust settles on the 2022 Midterm Election, there was an interesting proposal on the ballot in Oregon which (just barely) won last week:

Measure 111: Enshrine the Right to Health Care in the State Constitution

• Yes: 50.6%
• No: 49.4%

>95% of votes in

Notwithstanding the slim possibility of it ultimately being defeated (Yes is up by around 20,000 votes as of this morning), it's important to understand that Measure 111 doesn't actually enact a specific healthcare coverage program. Here's an explainer of what it does do from More Perfect Union (published prior to it passing):

The ballot initiative would put health care roughly on par with the right to public education, which is in every state constitution. Like with the right to education, the proposed language making health care a right in the state constitution is intentionally vague, giving the legislature the freedom to interpret and implement policy changes.

...Should the measure pass, Steiner Hayward says that she will push for a waiver that would keep people under 200 percent of the federal poverty level insured. She does not believe Measure 111 would change how people get their health insurance, nor does she think it would lead to a single-payer system, like the one in Canada, where one public agency pays for health care.

I think the "< 200% FPL coverage waiver" comment refers to Oregon's pending Basic Health Plan waiver, which indeed would create a special healthcare program for Oregon residents earning between 138 - 200% FPL similar to programs in New York and Minnesota, but she might be referring to something else?

However, there would be one immediate change for residents. Oregonians would be able to sue the state if it “fails to satisfactorily implement each resident of Oregon’s fundamental right to access cost-effective, clinically appropriate and affordable health care,” according to Lorey Freeman, a member of the legislative council, in a committee meeting document.

In other words, while the proposal doesn't actually force the legislature to pass any particular healthcare expansion policies in & of itself, it basically sets things up for the state court system to force them to do so going forward. Interesting.