Solving Oregon's Health Care Problems - Who Is Responsible?

On September 22, 2005 I spent about an hour of cordial, intense sometimes spirited conversation with Portland's mayor, Tom Potter, focusing on public health care policy. I also had an email exchange on the same subject with an official connected to the Republican party of Clackamas county in which he chose to play the role of an attack dog talk radio host. Each of these discussions was instructive in its own way. Taken together, three dramatically dissimilar viewpoints on public health care policy emerge. As we engage in public debate over future candidates for public office and upcoming ballot measures take a moment to consider which of the three approaches to solving Oregon's individual and public institution problem with affordable health care that most closly resembles your position and how that will or should affect your votes and your political activism.

View #1 The state of Oregon is the rightful responsible party to solve the problem of affordable health care for both individual Oregonians and Oregon's public institutions.

Shortly after the presidential election in November of 2004 I had an epiphany. A decades old belief that the federal government in Washington D.C. was going to provide affordable health care for both individual Oregonians and Oregon's public institutions in my lifetime was finally shattered. After depression I refocused and realized that the solution was at hand in our state. Using John Kitzhaber's brilliantly devised Oregon Health Plan as a platform on which to build, a new Oregon health care solution for Oregon's future emerged.

I have been professionally involved with providing problem solving advice on political and technical issues for twenty-five years. The moral and economic problems at hand are these:
1. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow Oregonians have no health insurance at all.
2. There are probably hundreds of thousands of Oregonians, like my family, who can barely afford to pay the skyrocketing premiums for high deductible low to no benefit catastrophic health insurance. That means we can't afford actual health care.
3. Every public institution in our state of Oregon is facing a 13%, + or - a point or two, annual increase in health care costs which have no end in sight and no way to stop. This is slowly but surely draining the lifeblood of public services from every community in our state.

I wrote the Oregon Community Health Care Bill to address these problems.

View #2 The federal government in Washington D.C. is the rightful responsible party to solve the problem of affordable health care for both individual Oregonians and Oregon's public institutions.

Unfortunately, mayor Potter's view of a federal solution to Oregon's problem of individual and public institutional health care costs is shared by many that have not yet seen the light. The evidence exposing the fruitlessness of this approach is overwhelming. Regardless of which political party controls The White House and The Congress, the federal government in Washington D.C. will NOT in the foreseeable future, in my lifetime, provide affordable health care to individual Oregonians and reduce the cost of health care to public institutions in our state of Oregon by 20%.

I challenge every elected official in Oregon and every candidate for public office in Oregon that holds this view to publicly identify who they think will lead the effort in Washington D.C. to solve the three problems stated above, what their plan will be, and when they will accomplish the task.

It is self-delusional and counter productive to merely and self-righteously throw stones at the federal government in a misguided belief that your efforts will have any timely and meaningful affect on health care reform in Oregon. You MUST have a SOLUTION to Oregon's health care problem NOT simply a useless venting of anger at those who are three thousand miles and a world away who aren't addressing our needs as Oregonians. Forget the federal government. They can't and won't help us in Oregon. We MUST do it ourselves.

View #3 Each individual Oregonian is the responsible party to solve the problem of affordable health care for both themselves and Oregon's public institutions. Those individuals and public institutions that cannot afford health care must rely on charity.

Despite the fact that this view, "Charity is the proper place for health care that cannot be purchased" is vociferously being proffered by an official connected to the Republican party of Clackamas county I do not know that this position is held as official policy by either the county, state or national Republican party. I have asked the three declared Republican candidates for governor of Oregon, Ron Saxton, Kevin Mannix and Jason Atkinson to acknowledge their support for this view if that is the case. To date none of these candidates has admitted any connection to this position.

There is ample evidence at every level of government within the United States of America that this view has long been abandoned. Only that an activist official of the Republican party in Clackamas county made such a fuss about it does it require mention.

Where Do You Stand?
Not every Oregonian is a victim of crime, required to enroll in public education or desires to spend some time in a state park. But, every Oregonian is affected by the consequences of both individual and public institutional health care policy. That's EVERY Oregonian without exception.

Until we have resolved the problems stated above, EVERY candidate for EVERY public office in Oregon MUST address the health care issue in their campaigns and, if elected, when they become a public official.

“The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, remain neutral.”
Dante Alighieri, 13th Century Italian Poet

"Any candidate for public office in Oregon that tells you that making health care affordable to every Oregonian and reducing the health care costs paid by public institutions in Oregon by 20 percent is NOT the most important issue on the public agenda in Oregon is either ignorant or lying, neither of which are character traits desirable in public officials."
Richard Ellmyer, 21st Century Oregon Political Activist

The people that believe in View #2 and View #3 can not and will not solve our state's health care crisis.

Those of you who believe that View #1 is the right road to a health care solution in Oregon are encouraged to join Richard Ellmyer - Oregon Community Health Care Bill author and project champion, Pete Sorenson - Lane County Commissioner and declared candidate for governor, Jim Robison - former Chair of the Multnomah County Democrats and declared candidate for a House seat and Sam Adams - Portland City Commissioner - et. al. at the Oregon Community Health Care Bill Forum at the Historic Kenton Firehouse in Portland on Saturday October 29, 2005 from 1-3 PM. RSVP richard@goodgrowthnw.org . If we don't fix it nobody will.

Be part of the solution not the problem.

Richard Ellmyer
Oregon Community Health Care Bill author and project champion
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses.
Writer/Publisher - Oregon Health Watcher commentary - Published on the Internet and distributed to 6000 readers interested in public health care policy in Oregon.
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/health.html
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/octoberforum.html