Last year, Oregon leaders passed a law to automatically register eligible Medicaid enrollees to vote. As a physician, I support this sensible measure to help close the voter registration gap for Medicaid enrollees, many of whom have been left out of having a say in the government that implements health care programs like Medicaid. Unfortunately, this new law is on hold until the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) act — which I’m urging them to do as soon as possible.
House Bill 2107 , passed in July 2023, would automatically register eligible Oregonians who enroll in Medicaid to vote. These residents would be registered as “nonaffiliated,” and they would also receive mail allowing them to then choose a political party or decline to register to vote. This process is virtually identical to the one Oregon already uses to register eligible voters when they obtain or renew their driver’s license or personal identification cards from the Oregon Department of Transportation.
From the perspective of a medical professional, this process is beneficial and sensible for a few reasons. An obvious one is that it helps cut down on red tape for patients. Oregonians applying for or renewing their Medicaid plans are already providing their personal information to the state, including updated address, correct signatures, partial Social Security Numbers, etc. Rather than have to figure out how and where to register to vote and reshare their personal information to do so, this process provides one-stop shopping. Additionally, since Medicaid enrollees are required to provide updated information annually the voter rolls can be more accurate and up-to-date.
Second, a data match the state of Oregon conducted showed that automatically registering Medicaid enrollees would reach a whopping 85% of the eligible but unregistered voters in our state. That equates to roughly 170,000 voter-eligible Oregonians , many of whom are low-income, people of color, young people and people with disabilities.
For these and so many other patients I’ve seen, streamlining services would be transformative, not just in eliminating red tape but in better engaging them in our democratic process. While all citizens should be able to have a say in who our elected officials are and how they run our government, it seems particularly important for those who rely most on critical programs such as Medicaid to be able to make their voices heard.
While Medicaid is a fantastic lifeline for so many Oregonians to be able to access health care, it also requires patients to jump through certain hoops to access this or that service, wait X amount of time, etc. — and these hoops are determined by government officials. It only seems right that those who utilize these programs have a say in them, too.
That’s why it’s so critical that federal administrators at CMS work with the state of Oregon to implement the secure automatic voter registration law for Medicaid enrollees. We can’t move forward on this process here in Oregon until CMS issues approval for states like ours to begin implementing this system. Other states are awaiting action, too.
We hope that CMS will move swiftly to work with Oregon officials to help efficiently register nearly 170,000 eligible Oregonians to vote, as well as ensure Medicaid enrollees are better able to make their voices heard.
Dr. Christine Bugas is a retired emergency medicine physician in Portland.
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