Oregon has been a place where people who are Black, Native American and Native Alaskan don’t live as long as white people.

It has been a place where if you live in a rural ZIP code, you live a shorter life than people in urban areas.

It has been a place where infant mortality is twice as high for Black infants as white.

But the Oregon Health Authority has a goal to eliminate health inequities in Oregon by 2030.

Ambitious? Yes. Possible? We sure hope so.

It plans to implement training, as needed, to increase immunization rates. It’s going to try to use more plain language in its communications. It’s going to explore ways to keep people insured and out of medical debt. It’s going to look at ways to reduce administrative burdens for providers and patients. It’s going to try to expand care with more culturally and linguistically responsive providers. And there is more.

Paired with the actions will be measuring outcomes, such as trying to achieve expanded rates of immunization and to keep the numbers of people with health care coverage in Oregon high.

An obstacle for any ambitious plan is that the public has heard about many ambitious plans before to end poverty, end homelessness and so many others. There’s ambitious plan fatigue. But health inequities mean higher health care costs for everyone. It is the right thing to do.

Oregon has the only state health agency promising to do this. There’s nothing wrong with another ambitious plan — much better if we get there.

You can learn more here: tinyurl.com/OHAplan.