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News Release | OSPIRG Foundation | Tax

Portland Receives a “D-” for Spending Transparency

The City of Portland received a grade of “D-” for spending transparency, according to a new report released today by OSPIRG Foundation. The report reviews Portland’s progress toward comprehensive, one-stop, one-click budget accountability and accessibility.

Report | USPIRG Education Fund | Democracy

Elections Confidential

“Elections Confidential” describes how secret donors poured hundreds of millions into the 2012 election through social-welfare groups that are really political vehicles and via shell corporations formed as conduits to hide a funder’s identity. The first post-Citizens United presidential election cycle was bought and paid for by a handful of wealthy donors, but the corrosive influence of money in politics was amplified by the fact that we don’t know who – or what – actually provided much of the funding.

Report | OSPIRG Foundation | Democracy

Outside Spending, Outsized Influence

The 2012 elections were by far the most expensive in history thanks primarily to the tidal wave of outside, special interest money triggered by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.The federal House races in Oregon, where outside groups spent over $1.1 million, were no exception.

Report | OSPIRG Foundation | Democracy

Billion-Dollar Democracy

The first presidential election since Citizens United lived up to its hype, with unprecedented outside spending from new sources making headlines. Demos and OSPIRG Foundation analysis of reports from campaigns, parties, and outside spenders to the Federal Election Commission found that our big money system distorts democracy and creates clear winners and losers: favoring wealthy donors over average citizens and powerful special interests over the public interst.

News Release | OSPIRG | Tax

First Step to Avoid the Fiscal Cliff: Close Offshore Tax Loopholes

With Congress scrambling to agree on ways to reduce the deficit, OSPIRG released a new analysis, pointing out a clear first step to avoid the “fiscal cliff”: closing offshore tax loopholes. OSPIRG’s data illustrates the size of the revenue lost when corporations don't pay their taxes, with 16 dramatic ways the $150 billion a year could be spent.

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Media Hit | Health Care

Regence Reduces Payments to Healthcare Professionals

July 26, 2012 -- Physicians and other healthcare professionals are being hit with a rate reduction from Regence BlueCross BlueShield on October 1, while the insurer is asking the Insurance Division to approve a 9.6 percent increase for roughly 53,000 people who buy their own coverage. A public hearing on that rate request will be held next Monday at 3 p.m. in Salem.

News Release | OSPIRG Foundation | Health Care

Providence Customers May See Rates Rise As Much As 18.6%

More than 12,000 Oregonians with individual health insurance plans will see rate hikes of 15.7% on average, and as high as 18.6%, if the premium rate hike posted today by Providence Health Plans goes forward. Many customers will also see increased out-of-pocket costs.

News Release | OSPIRG Foundation | Health Care

Regence Rate Hike To Reach 16.4% for Some Customers

More than 52,000 Oregonians with individual health insurance plans will see rate hikes of 9.6% on average, and as high as 16.4%, if the premium rate hike posted today by Regence BlueCross BlueShield goes forward. At the same time, customers in lower-deductible plans will face out-of-pocket costs starting at $2,500 before coverage kicks in, and consumers in the Portland metro area may need to change providers.

Media Hit | Health Care

Portland-area Regence BlueCross BlueShield individual members could see rate hikes as high as 15.3 percent

Individual members of Regence BlueCross BlueShield could see an average 9.6-percent rate increase statewide, requested by the insurer months after announcing network changes to cut costs.

News Release | OSPIRG | Health Care

Supreme Court Upholds Affordable Care Act

Today’s decision is good news for consumers in Oregon. Now it’s time for Oregon leaders to move forward on the next steps, and make sure health reform delivers lower costs and better quality coverage.

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Report | OSPIRG Foundation | Health Care

Comments on Health Net's Proposal to Increase Small Business Health Insurance Rates

> Keep Reading

Report | OSPIRG | Tax

Picking Up the Tab

When corporations and wealthy individuals hide their billions of dollars in offshore tax havens, average Oregonians pick up the tab. Oregon taxpayers and small businesses end up paying for these lost billions through higher taxes, cuts in public services or increasing the national debt—the equivalent of $309 per Oregon taxpayer in 2011, or $931 million for all of Oregon.

Report | OSPIRG Foundation | Transportation

Transportation and the New Generation

Federal and local governments have historically made massive investments in new highway capacity on the assumption that driving will continue to increase at a rapid and steady pace. The changing transportation preferences of young people—and Americans overall—throw those assumptions into doubt. The time has come for transportation policy to reflect the needs and desires of today’s Americans—not the worn-out conventional wisdom from days gone by.

Report | OSPIRG Foundation | Health Care

Comments on PacificSource's Small Business Rate Hike Proposal

PacificSource is proposing to increase rates 5.56% on average, affecting 35,224 Oregonians enrolled in small business plans. If approved, this rate increase will have wide ranging impacts. Most enrollees will see increases of between 6% and 10%. Some will see increases of up to 11.2%. Over 27% will see increases of between 8% and 14%.

Report | OSPIRG Foundation | Budget

Following the Money 2012

This report is OSPIRG Foundation’s third annual ranking of states’ progress toward “Transparency 2.0” – a new standard of comprehensive, one-stop, one-click budget accountability and accessibility. The past year has seen continued progress, with new states providing online access to government spending information and several states pioneering new tools to further expand citizens’ access to spending information and engagement with government.

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Blog Post | Food

2.8 billion Twinkies is a lot of Twinkies | David Rosenfeld

We’ve already documented that at least $1 billion in taxpayer dollars directly subsidize the production of junk food ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oils that are the main ingredients in Twinkies, soda and other junk food products. If you spent all that money on Twinkies, it would be enough to buy about 2.8 billion of those golden colored sweets (at the estimated wholesale rate of 36 cents per Twinkie), or about 19 Twinkies per taxpayer. But the fun math doesn’t need to stop there, especially when we’re talking 2.8 billion Twinkies.

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Blog Post | Consumer Protection

Have you ever experienced a yo-yo scam from a car dealer? | David Rosenfeld

Our friends at the Center for Responsible Lending just released a new report on yo-yo car buying scams.

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Blog Post | Transportation

Two good inter-city transit developments | David Rosenfeld

Two interesting (and at face value, good) announcements today from the Oregon Department of Transportation.

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Blog Post | Tax

Offshore Tax Havens Cost Oregon Taxpayers Dearly | David Rosenfeld

Just in time for Tax Day, OSPIRG released another fine piece of work from our national Budget and Taxes guru Phineas Baxendall. The report-Picking up the Tab: Average Citizens and Small Businesses Pay the Price for Offshore Tax Havens-examines the practice of hiding legitimate U.S. profits and income in offshore tax havens. While this has mostly been discussed as a federal matter, the topic has a big impact on Oregon taxpayers, small businesses and state revenue.

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Blog Post | Transportation

Why are young people driving less? | David Rosenfeld

New report by OSPIRG Foundation and Frontier Group that documents the nationwide decline in driving—and finds that young people are leading the trend. The report explores the many factors that have led to the decrease in driving among the young. Bottom line: if these trends are structural, as the data suggests, then transportation planners will need to overhaul their assumptions about whether the nation needs (or can afford) major highway expansions.

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FIGHTING UNJUSTIFIED PREMIUM HIKES

It’s time for health insurers to get serious about lowering the cost of care instead of raising deductibles and hiking premiums.

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Stop Tax Dodgers

Corporate tax avoidance cost taxpayers $100 billion last year. We're working to close the loopholes that allow companies to avoid paying the taxes they owe.

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YOUR TAX DOLLARS BECOME CORN SYRUP

At a time when one-in-three kids is overweight or obese, over a billion taxpayer dollars go to high-fructose corn syrup and junk food ingredients.

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Reclaim Democracy

The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision ushered in an era of unprecedented spending by big money in our elections, but we're working to return our democracy back to the principle of "one person, one vote."

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