Oregon’s hospital merger law may further protect abortion access in the state

Oregon’s strict law regulating health care mergers may keep religiously affiliated health systems that do not provide abortion care from expanding
When it comes to the nationwide abortion access struggle triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court, Oregon has a potent tool found nowhere else.

Oregon’s toughest-in-the-nation law regulating health-care mergers that went into effect this year gives state officials the authority to deny significant health-care industry consolidations that would result in higher prices, less competition or restricted access.

Significantly, that power is intended to, among other things, protect access to abortion and other reproductive health services such as by restricting the expansion of religious-based providers. And now, in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling striking down Roe v. Wade, lawmakers in Washington state are renewing their efforts to follow Oregon’s lead and pass a similar law. Washington state Sen. Manka Dhingra recently told Axios there’s “definitely a path forward” to doing so.

In Oregon, Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Lake Oswego, who last year sponsored the merger law, House Bill 2362, told The Lund Report that the Oregon law is even more important now that the Supreme Court ruling has spawned a state-by-state fight over abortion rights and access.