SALEM - Every man, woman and child in Oregon would receive medical insurance by the year 2008 under a proposed initiative measure that's been filed for next year's statewide ballot.

The measure, sponsored by a doctor and a nurse from Hillsboro, would rekindle the debate over universal health coverage at a time when the number of Oregonians who lack health insurance has climbed to more than 600,000.

In 2002, Oregon voters soundly defeated a universal health care plan that would have been financed by a new payroll tax of up to 11.5 percent on businesses and an increase in personal income taxes.

That measure faced strong opposition from business, insurance and health care industry groups, who feared it would lead to runaway health care spending and wreck the state's economy.

The new measure being touted by Dr. Evan Saulino and registered nurse Dominga Lopez, who work together at a health clinic, says only that the 2007 Legislature must create the framework for a universal health care system and that one must be in place by November 2008.

In an interview Monday, Saulino said he felt it makes more sense to have voters approve a broad mandate requiring health coverage for all Oregonians and then let the Legislature hammer out the details in consultation with business, insurance and health care groups.

However, J.L. Wilson, head of the Oregon chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, said his group would oppose the measure because mandating health care for all would inevitably require “huge” tax increases on businesses and individuals.

“I don't see how you could escape that,” Wilson said.

No state currently has a universal health care system.

Saulino said he became convinced of the need for state-mandated health care for all after he diagnosed a young woman with breast cancer and then learned she was uninsured and had no way to pay for treatment of her illness.

“At that moment I saw the future and I thought, ‘My God, we've got to do something,”' the doctor said.

The co-sponsors of the measure said they have been meeting with various labor and health care groups to enlist their support for a campaign to gather signatures to place the measure to a statewide vote.

One of the state's leading health care activist groups, Oregonians for Health Security, said it's not endorsing the universal health care plan just yet.

But spokeswoman Maribeth Healey said she finds it heartening that it's one of several health care initiatives that have been filed for next year's ballot.

Those include proposals to boost the state cigarette tax to extend health coverage to thousands of uninsured Oregonians and to expand a new state prescription drug discount program to cover more people, she noted.

“All of these measures are focusing attention on health care and they are putting legislators on notice that they have to do something about this crisis,” Healey said.

Oregon drew nationwide attention in 1994 when it launched the Oregon Health Plan, a unique system that's designed to cover more people by limiting or “rationing” services with a prioritized list of medical conditions and treatments.

But the plan - an expanded Medicaid coverage system for the “working poor” - has been plagued by rising medical costs and the state's economic struggles in the past few years that have reduced available funding for the program.

This year, there is no money in the state budget to prevent enrollment in the state health plan from shrinking to cover fewer than 25,000 people. That's nearly 100,000 fewer than during the plan's peak enrollment in 2001.