Such is the condition of the Oregon Health Plan these days that genuinely good management options are a rarity. Still, some options will always be better than others, and one of these is the elimination of the $6 monthly premium charged to the poorest members of the OHP Standard plan.

OHP Standard is the ever-shrinking part of the health plan that covers single and married adults whose incomes fall below the federal poverty line. With about 40,000 beneficiaries, it is much smaller than the OHP Plus plan, which provides Medicaid-mandated coverage to more than 350,000 Oregonians. And it’s about to get even smaller. In response to budgetary pressure, enrollment in OHP Standard must drop to 24,000 within a matter of months.

Which brings us to coverage premiums. Last year, the state began to charge OHP Standard beneficiaries monthly premiums ranging from $6 to $20, depending upon income. The premiums are useful in two ways: They raise money for the struggling plan, and they reduce enrollment. Under the new rules, the households of all plan members who fail to cough up their premiums every month are bounced for at least six months. As you might expect, enrollment, which was then about 100,000, has taken a nose dive. The premiums have worked.

Now, however, Health Plan officials are rethinking the rules. The premiums, argue advocates for low-income Oregonians, have been the greatest challenge for the poorest people, and the poorest people need help the most. As a result, state health officials asked the Legislative Emergency Board last week to waive the $6 premium for the poorest members of the OHP Standard population. There are about 16,000 such beneficiaries, and they make less than $77 per month, or less than $122 per month for a couple. The E-Board subcommittee handling the request wanted to gather more information, though, so it delayed the discussion until January.

Limiting a powerful tool for reducing enrollment may seem like a strange thing to do when the state wants enrollment to drop even further. It really isn’t, though. The state has closed the OHP Standard plan to new enrollees, and the enrollment decline is on pace to hit 24,000 by the required time. Waiving the $6 premium would simply help the plan’s poorest members as the plan shrinks. Barring surprises between now and then, the E-Board should do as health officials ask when it meets again.