| OPA Legislative Update |
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OPA Legislative Update
On 1/9/23, the Oregon State Legislature convened for organizational days to kick off the 82nd Legislative Session, which lasts 160 days. At that time, the legislature introduced over 2000 bills. Additional bills have been introduced each week. Your OPA lobbyists, Lara Smith and Betsy Jones, developed a list of bills of interest to OPA. The OPA Legislative Committee hit the ground running with over 60 bills of interest for review to determine positions and priorities. Below is a list of a few relevant bills.
HB 2757 - Expands and provides funding for coordinated crisis services system including 988 suicide prevention and behavioral health crisis hotline. This bill comes from a facilitated work group that the Oregon chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) brought together. The work group included behavioral health providers (including psychologists), members of the Association of Oregon Community Mental Health Programs (AOCMHP), people with lived experience, Lines for Life, and others. The group met for over a year to develop this legislation implementing Oregon’s 988 system. The Oregon Psychological Association is in support of this bill. This bill had its first hearing in the House Behavioral Health Care Committee on 2/6/23. If you would like to personally voice your support for this bill, please feel free to reach out to members of the House Behavioral Health Care Committee.
HB 2626- Adds licensed mental health professionals and certified medical laboratory scientists and medical laboratory technicians to types of providers eligible for tax credit allowed to rural medical care providers. This bill includes psychologists as eligible for this tax credit. The Oregon Psychological Association is in support of this bill. This bill had its first hearing in the House Behavioral Health and Health Care Committee on 2/7/23. If you would like to personally voice your support for this bill, please feel free to reach out to members of the House Behavioral Health Care Committee.
HB 2458 - Prohibits practice of conversion therapy by certain professionals. In 2015, OPA supported a similar bill, HB 2307, which prohibited the practice of conversion therapy by any mental health care or social health professional if the recipient was under the age of 18. HB 2458 expands the prohibition of the practice of conversion therapy regardless of the recipients age. The Oregon Psychological Association is in support of this bill and will be submitting a statement in support of the bill. This bill is scheduled for a hearing in the House Behavioral Health and Health Care Committee on 2/14/23 at 5:00pm. If you would like to personally testify or submit written testimony in support here is the link to do so.
If you are interested in joining our legislative committee please feel free to reach out to Ryan Dix, OPA Legislative Chair @ [email protected].
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